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Jake Van Dorn is a prosperous local businessman in Grand Rapids, Michigan who has strong Calvinist convictions. A single parent, Van Dorn is the father of a seemingly quiet, conservative teenage girl, Kristen, who inexplicably disappears when she goes on a church-sponsored trip to Bellflower, California. Andy Mast, a strange private investigator (PI) from Los Angeles, is then hired to find her, eventually turning up an 8mm stag film of Van Dorn's daughter with two young men. After Van Dorn views the film, he suspects that his daughter was kidnapped and persuaded to join California's porn underworld. His quest to rescue her takes him on an odyssey through this sleazy adult subculture. With no results from the PI, the Los Angeles Police Department, or even from Los Angeles' sex shopkeepers and "rap parlor" women, a desperate Van Dorn posts an ad as a pornography producer in the Los Angeles Free Press, hoping to find information about his daughter. A scraggly actor named "Jism Jim", who was in the film with Kristen, knows where she might be and sends him to a sometime porn actress/hooker named Niki. Van Dorn hires Niki to accompany him on the search for Kristen. Chasing a rumor that Kristen was now filming porn in Mexico, their uneasy alliance moves from Los Angeles to San Diego, gradually warming up to each other: Niki feels protected by Van Dorn because he is a man who doesn't see her as merely a sex object, and he is able to speak openly to her about his deepest feelings, such as his wife leaving him. The unlikely pair ends in San Francisco where Van Dorn finds that Kristen may be in the hands of Ratan, a very dangerous S & M porn player who deals in the world of "snuff movies". Niki, who had previously begun to think Van Dorn will help her to escape life on the streets, now finds herself fearful of being forgotten once he locates his daughter at all—alive or dead. As a result, she initially refuses to divulge the address of a porn industry player who is a link to Ratan. Van Dorn loses his temper and strikes her to get her to reveal the information. Van Dorn finds the player, "Tod", in a bondage house and forces Tod to tell him where Ratan hangs out. Van Dorn and Mast track Ratan to a nightclub where he and Kristen are observing a live sex show. When Van Dorn confronts Ratan, Kristen flees and Ratan slashes Van Dorn with a knife. Mast shoots and kills Ratan. Van Dorn tells Kristen he'll take her home from the people he believes forced her into pornography. However, she responds with anger, stating that she entered porn of her own free will as a way to rebel against her conservative upbringing and now felt loved and appreciated in a way that the emotionally distant Van Dorn never offered. Despondent and tearful, Van Dorn asks her if she really wants him to leave her alone but she acknowledges that she does not. As the two prepare to return home, Van Dorn spots Niki. He speaks to her, starting to make a token offer of gratitude but it's clear to both that it's just as she feared—her usefulness to him, and thus their relationship, is now over. She walks away, resigned to continuing her life on the streets. 

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"Big" Jim Stevens (Edward G. Robinson), undisputed boss of the Chicago underworld, gets an unexpected birthday present from his ambitious lieutenant, Guy Gisborne (Peter Falk). Instead of a stripper popping out of the cake, Big Jim gets shot by all the guests. Gisborne takes over. He orders all the other gangsters in town to pay him protection money, but declares it's still "All for One." The news does not sit well with Big Jim's friend and fellow gangster, Robbo (Frank Sinatra), and a gangland war breaks out. Robbo recruits pool hustler Little John (Dean Martin), who demonstrates his billiards skills while singing "Any Man Who Loves His Mother," plus quick-draw artist Will (Sammy Davis Jr.) and a few others, but they are still greatly outnumbered. In addition, the corrupt Sheriff Octavius Glick is on Gisborne's payroll. Gisborne and Robbo come up with the same idea, to destroy the other's gambling joint on the same night, with Will enjoying every moment of shooting up Gisborne's place ("Bang! Bang!"). Big Jim's refined, educated daughter, Marian (Barbara Rush), shows up. She asks Robbo to avenge her father's death (wrongfully attributed to the sheriff), a request which Robbo flatly refuses. Gisborne disposes of the sheriff. Marian then invites Robbo to dinner and gives him $50,000, falsely assuming that Robbo did as she had asked. Robbo refuses the money, so Marian attempts to seduce him into joining forces to take over the whole town. Robbo turns her down. When she sends the money to his under-repair gambling club, Robbo donates it to a boys' orphanage. Alan A. Dale (Bing Crosby), the orphanage's director, notifies the newspapers about this good deed. A new Chicago star is born: a gangster who robs from the rich and gives to the poor. Robbo finds it useful to have the public on his side. He invites the delighted Dale to join his gang, having him handle all the charities. Dale starts the Robbo Foundation and opens a string of soup kitchens, free clinics and orphan shelters. He even gives green, feathered hats and bows and arrows to the orphans, while thoroughly milking the Robin Hood image. In the meantime, Robbo and Little John give tips to Dale on how to improve his own image ("Style"). Robbo's joint reopens and is an instant hit while Gisborne, whose place is now empty, is infuriated. He and the new sheriff, Potts, organize a police raid. Robbo has anticipated this and when a few switches are pulled, the entire club is disguised as a mission. The sheriff and Gisborne burst in to find Robbo's gang singing gospel songs and preaching the evils of alcohol, complete with hymnals and tambourines ("Mr. Booze"). Robbo is framed for Glick's murder. At the trial, Gisborne and Potts claim that Robbo planned the whole thing. Dale tries to teach the despondent orphans to view this as a lesson ("Don't Be a Do-Badder"). The jury finds Robbo innocent. Wearing a green suit, Robbo publicly thanks everyone in Chicago ("My Kind of Town"). When he returns to his club, Robbo finds every one of his charities is now a front for counterfeiting. The soup kitchen smuggles fake bills in soup cans over state lines. Robbo also finds Little John living it up in Marian's mansion. Marian is willing to keep Robbo as a front, as long as she is in charge. Robbo shows his contempt for her and leaves, with Little John following him out the door. Marian finds another willing partner in Gisborne, but the gangster is no match for Robbo and is killed. Robbo tells a shocked Marian to clear out of town. She instead turns public opinion against him, starting a Women's League for Better Government and framing Robbo for the counterfeiting ring that she and Little John started. Unable to fight an angry mob of women, Robbo and his gang flee. Robbo and his merry men are reduced to working as Santa Clauses to solicit charitable donations. They watch dumbfounded as Marian steps out of a car with her latest partner, Alan A. Dale, who casually gives the Santas money before going off with Marian. 

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Joe Turner (Robert Redford) is a bookish CIA analyst, code named "Condor". He works at the American Literary Historical Society in New York City, which is actually a clandestine CIA office. The seven staff members read books, newspapers, and magazines from around the world, looking for hidden meanings and other useful information. Turner files a report to CIA headquarters on a thriller novel with some strange plot elements, noting the unusual assortment of languages it has been translated into (despite not selling well). On the day Turner is expecting a response to his report, he steps out through a back basement door to pick up staff lunches at a nearby deli. Meanwhile, armed men enter the office and murder the other six staffers. Turner returns to find his coworkers dead; frightened, he grabs a gun and exits the building. He contacts the CIA's New York headquarters in the World Trade Center from a phone booth and is given instructions to meet Wicks, his head of department, who will bring him to safety. But the rendezvous is a trap. Turner insists that Wicks bring somebody familiar, since "Condor" has never met his departmental head. Wicks brings Sam Martin, a college friend of Turner, who is also a non-field employee of the CIA. Wicks attempts to kill Turner, who wounds his superior before escaping. Wicks kills Turner's friend to eliminate a witness. Taken into hospital Wicks blames Turner for both shootings, before his own life support system is turned off by an intruder. Turner encounters a woman, Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway), and forces her to take him to her apartment. He holds Hale hostage while he attempts to figure out what is happening. Hale slowly comes to trust Turner, and they become lovers. However, Joubert (Max von Sydow), a European who led the massacre of Turner's co-workers, discovers Turner's hiding place. He visits Martin's building and spends some tense moments in the elevator with Turner once the other passengers have left. After Turner leaves the building Joubert tries to shoot him but Turner manages to blend into a small crowd. Soon after, a hitman (Hank Garrett) disguised as a mailman arrives at Hale's apartment, but Turner manages to kill him. No longer trusting anyone within "the Company", Turner plays a cat-and-mouse game with Higgins (Cliff Robertson), the deputy director of the CIA's New York division. With Hale's help, Turner abducts Higgins, who identifies Joubert as a freelance assassin who has undertaken assignments for the CIA. Back at his office, Higgins discovers that the "mailman" who attacked Turner worked with Joubert on a previous operation. Their CIA case officer was Wicks. Meanwhile, Turner discovers Joubert's location by utilizing his US Army Signals Corps training to trace a phone call. Turner also learns the name and address of Leonard Atwood (Addison Powell), CIA Deputy Director of Operations for the Middle East. Turner confronts Atwood at the latter's Washington D.C.-area mansion, interrogates him at gunpoint, and learns that Turner's original report filed to CIA headquarters had provided links to a rogue operation to seize Middle Eastern oil fields. Fearful of its disclosure, Atwood privately ordered Turner's section be eliminated. As Atwood confirms this, Joubert enters and unexpectedly kills the CIA deputy director. Atwood's superiors had hired Joubert to stage the suicide of someone who was about to become an embarrassment, overriding Atwood's original contract for Joubert to kill Turner. Joubert suggests that the resourceful Turner leave the country and even become an assassin himself. Turner rejects the suggestion but heeds Joubert's warning that the CIA will try to eliminate him as another embarrassment, possibly entrapping him through a trusted acquaintance. Back in New York, Turner has a rendezvous with Higgins near Times Square. Higgins describes the oilfield plan as a contingency "game" that was planned within the CIA without approval from above. He defends the project, suggesting that when oil shortages cause a major economic crisis, Americans will demand that their comfortable lives be restored by any means necessary. Turner points to The New York Times building and says he has "told them a story." Higgins is dismayed, asking Turner, "What have you done?" He then tells Turner that he is about to become a very lonely man, and he questions whether Turner's whistleblowing will really be published. "They'll print it," Turner defiantly replies. However, as "Condor" turns away, Higgins calls out "How do you know?" 

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The opening exposition to Night Trap is presented to the player by Lt. Simms of the Sega Control Attack Team (S.C.A.T.) on Sega CD, or Special Control Attack Team in other versions. He explains that the team was alerted to the disappearance of five teenage girls who were last seen at the Martin winery estate. The Martin family consists of Victor Martin, his wife Sheila, their children Jeff (Andras Jones) and Sarah, and cousin Tony. The missing girls were reportedly invited to stay for the night. Police questioned the Martin family, but they claimed the girls had left safely, and they refused to let the police search the property. The police then handed over the case to S.C.A.T., which investigated the house and discovered a series of traps, security cameras, and an operational unit in the basement to control the apparatus. The S.C.A.T. agents spliced an override cable onto the control system and connected it to a control panel in the back hallway of the house. The player is given the role of an internal S.C.A.T. operative charged with controlling the traps and cameras from this back hallway. Five more teenage girls head towards the estate, Kelli, Ashley, Lisa, Cindy, and Megan. S.C.A.T. was able to place agent Kelli Medd (Dana Plato) within the group as an undercover agent. The girls are not aware of her true identity. Also with the girls is Danny, Lisa's younger brother. What the gang does not know is the house is infested with Augers, vampiric beings that need blood to survive. The Martin family themselves are in the process of becoming vampires. The following events that take place and the ending vary widely depending on which characters the player is able to save from the Augers. 

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In an adult erotic take-off of George Bernard Shaw 1913 play Pygmalion (and the 1956 musical based on it, My Fair Lady), the film is about a sexologist who tries transforming a low-skilled prostitute into a goddess of passion. While he tries to prepare her to seduce a gay male art dealer (played by gay porn actor Casey Donovan), it is he for whom she develops feelings. During the course of her training, she manages to please three men at one time, pegs a man, and seduces the gay art dealer, among other sexual conquests. In this film, Henry Higgins (of Pygmalion) is replaced by Dr. Seymour Love, the sexologist, played by Jamie Gillis. Eliza Doolittle (of Pygmalion) becomes Dolores "Misty" Beethoven, who is played by Constance Money, and Colonel Pickering becomes Geraldine Rich, played by Jacqueline Beudant. During the film, Misty achieves "elevation" better than Love and Rich had hoped and then cuts them off, as in George Bernard Shaw's play. However, this film then sees Misty return, take over for Dr. Love, and run the "school". Dr. Love is present but in a very subservient position. It is clearly Misty who is in charge by this time. 

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Poet, lapsed Catholic and conscientious objector Louis Sacchetti is sent to a secret military installation called Camp Archimedes, where military prisoners are injected with a form of syphilis intended to make them geniuses (hence the punning reference to "concentration" in the novel's title). By breaking down rigid categories in the mind (according to a definition of genius put forward by Arthur Koestler), the disease makes the thought process both faster and more flexible; it also causes physical breakdown and, within nine months, death. The book is told in the form of Sacchetti's diary, and includes literary references to the story of Faust (at one point the prisoners stage Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Sacchetti's friendship with ringleader Mordecai Washington parallels Faust's with Mephistopheles). It only becomes clear that Sacchetti himself has syphilis as his diary entries refer to his increasingly poor health, and become progressively more florid, until almost descending into insanity. After a test run on the prisoners, a megalomaniac nuclear physicist has himself injected with the disease, joins Camp Archimedes with his team of student helpers, and sets about trying to end the human race. The prisoners in the book appear to be fascinated by alchemy, which they used as an elaborate cover for their escape plans. Sacchetti, who is obese, has a number of ironic visions involving other obese historical and intellectual figures, such as Thomas Aquinas. 

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After an unspecified crisis in a near-future England where telepathy has been discovered, the authorities discover Gerald Howson, a physically deformed youth with greater telepathic power than has ever been seen before. The novel details Howson's struggles to come to grips with his power and his deformity. 

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The film begins with a flashback showing The Triplets of Belleville: a trio of singers performing on stage in the 1920s (dancing alongside other celebrities including Josephine Baker and Django Reinhardt). The story focuses on Madame Souza, an elderly woman raising her young charge, her grandson, Champion. Souza notices his listlessness that is attributed to hints of his being orphaned. When she notices his (brief) interest in music, she tries to get him to play the piano. When this fails to inspire, she buys him Bruno, a dog. After a time he becomes melancholic once more. She discovers Champion's keen interest in road bicycle racing (a photo on his wall shows his deceased parents with a cycle), she buys him a tricycle. We see them years later, as Champion the cyclist and Souza, his coach. Champion competes the Tour de France but during the race, he and two other riders are kidnapped by two French mafia henchmen and brought to the bustling metropolis of Belleville. Souza and Bruno follow the men, but lose their trail. Lost and with no way to find Champion, Souza has a chance encounter with the renowned Belleville triplets, music hall singers from the 1930s, now elderly women turned improvisational musicians. The sisters take Souza to their home and she soon becomes a part of their group. We then see the wine mafia boss using the kidnapped cyclists as horses in a stationary cycling machine. They are raced in a simulated Tour de France race for gambling. At a fancy restaurant, the Triplets and Souza perform a jam session using newspaper, refrigerator, vacuum cleaner and bicycle wheel as instruments. The wine mafia boss happens to be in the restaurant and, with the help of Bruno, Souza realizes he has Champion. She tails one of the minions and discovers the scheme. That night, mob bosses and henchmen arrive at the hideout to bet on the riders (one of whom falls off his bicycle from exhaustion, at which point the bookmaker shoots him as one would an injured horse). Madame Souza, Bruno and the Triplets then infiltrate the hideout, sabotage the contraption, free it and turn it into a pedal- powered vehicle on which they all escape. The mob henchmen pursue them, but are all overcome. The film ends with the motley group riding out of Belleville, and a flashforward to an older Champion reflecting on the adventure, as told to him by the then-deceased Souza. 

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In 1985, Simpson and Yates reached the summit of the previously unclimbed west face of Siula Grande. Upon descent, Simpson slipped down an ice cliff and landed awkwardly, breaking his right leg and crushing his tibia into his knee joint. The pair, whose trip had already taken longer than they intended due to bad weather on the ascent, had run out of fuel for their stove and could not melt ice or snow for drinking water. With bad weather closing in and daylight fading, they needed to descend quickly to the glacier, about below. Yates proceeded to lower Simpson off the North Ridge by tying two lengths of rope together to make one rope. However, because the two ropes were tied together, the knot could not go through the belay plate. Simpson would have to stand on his good leg to give Yates enough slack to unclip the rope, in order to thread the rope back through the lowering device with the knot on the other side. With storm conditions worsening and darkness upon them, Yates inadvertently lowered Simpson off a cliff. Because Yates was sitting higher up the mountain, he could not see nor hear Simpson; he could only feel that Simpson had all his weight on the rope. Simpson attempted to ascend the rope using a Prusik knot. However, because his hands were badly frostbitten, he was unable to tie the knots properly and accidentally dropped one of the cords required to ascend the rope. The pair were both in mortal danger. Simpson could not climb up the rope, Yates could not pull him back up, the cliff was too high for Simpson to be lowered down, and they could not communicate. They remained in this position for some time, until it was obvious to Yates that the snow around his belay seat was about to give out. Because the pair were tied together, they would both be pulled to their deaths. Yates had to cut the rope in order to save his own life. Simpson plummeted down the cliff and into a deep crevasse. Exhausted and suffering from hypothermia, Yates dug himself a snow cave to wait out the storm. The next day, Yates carried on descending the mountain by himself. When he reached the crevasse he realized the situation that Simpson had been in and what had happened when he cut the rope. After calling for Simpson and hearing no reply, Yates made the assumption that Simpson had died and so continued down the mountain alone. Simpson, however, was still alive. He had survived the fall despite his broken leg and had landed on a small ledge inside the crevasse. When he regained consciousness, he discovered that the rope had been cut and realized that Yates would presume that he was dead. He therefore had to save himself. It was impossible for him to climb up to the entrance of the crevasse, because of the overhanging ice and his broken leg. Therefore, his only choice was to lower himself deeper into the crevasse and hope that there was another way out. After lowering himself, Simpson found another small entrance and climbed back onto the glacier via a steep snow slope. From there, Simpson spent three days without food and with almost no water, crawling and hopping back to their base camp. This involved navigating the glacier (which was scattered with more crevasses) and the moraines below. Exhausted and delirious, he reached base camp only a few hours before Yates intended to leave the base camp and return to civilization. Simpson's survival is regarded by mountaineers as amongst the most remarkable instances of survival against the odds.Mountaineering: The Making of Touching the Void | Mountaineering. OutsideOnline.com. Retrieved on 2012-06-23. 

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While on a sea voyage, a ship named Naglfar founders. One anhedonic passenger, A. Clarence Shandon (M.B.A., Wisconsin), is washed ashore in a fictional land known as "The Commonwealth of Letters". He is befriended by Golias, who nicknames him "Silverlock" and who becomes his guide. Silverlock and Golias encounter figures from history, literature and mythology. 

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Two American backpackers from New York City, David Kessler and Jack Goodman, are trekking across the moors in Yorkshire. As night falls, they stop at a local pub called the Slaughtered Lamb. Jack notices a five-pointed star on the wall, but when he asks about it, the pub-goers become hostile. The pair decide to leave, and the pub-goers warn them to keep to the road, stay clear of the moors and beware of the full moon. David and Jack end up wandering off the road onto the moors, and are attacked by a vicious creature. Jack is mauled to death and David is injured. The beast is shot and killed by some of the pub-goers, who came out in search for the boys. Instead of a dead animal, David sees the corpse of a naked man lying next to him before passing out. David wakes up three weeks later in a hospital in London. He is interviewed by police Inspector Villiers who tells him that he and Jack were attacked by an escaped lunatic, but David insists they were attacked by some sort of rabid dog or wolf. An undead Jack appears to David and explains the beast that attacked them was a werewolf, and reveals that David is now one. Jack urges David to kill himself before the next full moon, not only because Jack is cursed to linger undead for as long as the bloodline of the werewolf that attacked them survives, but also to prevent David from inflicting the same fate on anyone else. Dr. Hirsch takes a road trip to the Slaughtered Lamb to see if what David has told him is true. When asked about the incident, the pub-goers deny any knowledge of David, Jack, or the attack. However, one distraught pub-goer speaks to Dr. Hirsch outside the pub and says David should not have been taken away, and that everyone else will be in danger when he transforms. Upon his release from intensive care, David moves in with Alex Price, a young nurse who grew infatuated with him in the hospital. He stays in Alex's London apartment, where they later have sex. Jack, in a more advanced stage of decay, appears to David to warn him that he will become a werewolf the next night. Jack again advises David to take his own life to avoid killing innocent people, but David refuses to believe him. When the full moon rises, David painfully transforms from his human form into a werewolf. David, now in werewolf form, prowls the streets and the London Underground, killing and slaughtering six people in the process. He wakes up the next morning naked on the floor of a wolf enclosure at the London Zoo, with no recollection of what happened, and manages to make his way back to Alex's apartment. After realising that he became a werewolf and was responsible for the previous night's murders, David unsuccessfully attempts to get himself arrested in Trafalgar Square. He goes to Piccadilly Circus, calling his family from a phone booth to say he loves them, then loses courage when he attempts and fails to slit his own wrists with a pocket knife. David then suddenly sees Jack, in a yet more advanced stage of decay, outside of an adult movie theatre. Inside, Jack is accompanied by David's victims from the previous night, most of whom are furious with David and suggest different methods for him to commit suicide. David transforms again into a werewolf inside the movie theatre. He decapitates Inspector Villiers, and wreaks havoc in the streets, causing the deaths of many drivers and bystanders. He is ultimately trapped and surrounded in an alleyway by the police. Alex runs down the alley in an attempt to calm David by telling him that she loves him. Although David appears to recognizes her for a brief moment, he lunges forward and is shot by police. Alex cries while staring at David, reverted to human form, lying dead and naked on the ground. 

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The play is set after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The heroine is an Afghan woman who had fled her homeland during the Civil War, but now returns from the United States to found an orphanage. In the ensuing plot, a warlord fails as he attempts a coup. As he retreats, he tries to use the orphans as human shields, prompting the heroine to kill the warlord. She then inspires the warlord's vengeful son to find choices other than violence, a theme that is common throughout Afghanistan. 

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Hanamichi Sakuragi is a delinquent and the leader of a gang. Sakuragi is very unpopular with girls, having been rejected an astonishing fifty times. In his first year at Shohoku High School, he meets Haruko Akagi, the girl of his dreams, and is overjoyed when she is not repulsed or scared of him like all the other girls he has asked out. Haruko, recognizing Sakuragi's athleticism, introduces him to the Shohoku basketball team. Sakuragi is reluctant to join the team at first, as he has no prior experience in sports and thinks that basketball is a game for losers because his fiftieth rejection was in favor of a basketball player. Sakuragi, despite his extreme immaturity and fiery temper, proves to be a natural athlete and joins the team, mainly in the hopes of impressing and getting closer to Haruko. Later on, Sakuragi realizes that he has come to actually love the sport, despite having previously played primarily because of his crush on Haruko. Kaede Rukawa — Sakuragi's bitter rival (both in basketball and because Haruko has a massive crush, albeit one- sided, on Rukawa), the star rookie and a "girl magnet" — joins the team at the same time. Not long after, Hisashi Mitsui, a skilled three-point shooter and ex-junior high school MVP, and Ryota Miyagi, a short but fast point guard, both rejoin the team and together these four struggle to fulfill team captain Takenori Akagi's dream of winning the national championship. Together, these misfits gain publicity and the once little-known Shohoku basketball team becomes an all-star contender in Japan. 

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In 1967, a pregnant woman is attacked by a vampire, causing her to go into premature labor. Doctors are able to save her baby, but the woman dies of an unknown infection. Thirty years later, in 1997, the child has become the vampire hunter, Blade. He raids a Los Angeles rave club owned by the vampire Deacon Frost. Police take one of the vampires to the hospital, where he kills Dr. Curtis Webb and feeds on hematologist Karen Jenson and escapes. Blade takes Karen to a safe house where she is treated by his old friend Abraham Whistler (Kristofferson). Whistler explains that he and Blade have been waging a secret war against vampires using weapons based on their elemental weaknesses, such as sunlight, silver, and garlic. As Karen is now "marked" by the bite of a vampire, both he and Blade tell her to leave the city. Meanwhile, at a meeting of the House of Erebus, a council of vampire elders, Frost, the leader of a faction of younger vampires, is rebuked for trying to incite war between vampires and humans. As Frost and his kind are not pure-bloods (natural-born vampires), they are considered socially inferior. In response, Frost has one of the elders executed and strips the others of their authority. Upon returning to her apartment, Karen is attacked by police officer Krieger, who is a "familiar", a human slave controlled by a vampire. Blade subdues Krieger and uses information from him to locate an archive that contains pages of the Book of Erebus (the vampire bible); he comes upon Pearl, a morbidly obese vampire and tortures him with a UV light into revealing that Deacon wants to command a ritual where he would use 12 pure blood vampires to represent the 12 spirits. With the blood and the strength of all 12 spirits, it will awaken the blood god La Magra, and Blade’s blood is the key: the blood of a day walker. Later, at the hideout, Blade injects himself with a special serum that suppresses his urge to drink human blood. However, the serum is beginning to lose its effectiveness due to overuse. Krieger informs Frost of what happened, and Frost kills and eats Krieger. While experimenting with the anticoagulant EDTA as a possible replacement, Karen discovers that it explodes when combined with vampire blood. She manages to synthesize a vaccine that can cure the infected but learns that it will not work on a human-vampire hybrid like Blade. Karen is confident that she can cure Blade's bloodthirst but it would take her years of treating it. Frost and his men attack the hideout, infect Whistler, and abduct Karen. When Blade returns, he helps Whistler commit suicide and arms himself with special syringes filled with EDTA. When Blade attempts to rescue Karen from Frost's penthouse, he is shocked to find his still-alive mother, who reveals that she came back the night she was attacked and was brought in by Frost, who appears and reveals himself as the vampire who bit her. Blade is then subdued and taken to the Temple of Eternal Night, where Frost plans to perform the summoning ritual for La Magra. Karen is thrown into a pit to be devoured by Webb, who has transformed into a decomposing zombie-like creature. Karen injures Webb with a sharp bone and escapes. Blade is drained of his blood, but Karen allows him to drink from her, enabling him to recover. Frost completes the ritual and obtains the powers of La Magra. Blade confronts Frost after killing all of his minions, including Blade's mother. During their fight, Blade injects Frost with all of the syringes, causing his body to inflate and explode, killing him. Karen offers to help Blade cure himself, but he asks her to create a new serum he can sustain on instead, as he intends to continue his crusade against vampires. In a brief epilogue, Blade confronts a vampire in Moscow. 

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Following the Master's trial and execution at the hands of the Daleks, the Doctor, currently in his seventh incarnation, is transporting the Master's remains to Gallifrey via his TARDIS. En route, the box with the remains breaks open and an ooze leaks out, infecting the TARDIS. The Doctor is forced to make an emergency materialisation in San Francisco's Chinatown on 30 December 1999. As he exits and locks the TARDIS, the Doctor is shot by a gang chasing down Chang Lee, a young Chinese-American man. Lee calls for an ambulance and escorts the unconscious Doctor to a hospital, unaware the ooze from the TARDIS has gotten aboard the ambulance. At the hospital, after the bullets are removed, cardiologist Dr Grace Holloway attempts surgery to stabilise his unusual heartbeat, but is confused by his strange double-heart anatomy, and accidentally lodges a cardiac probe in the Doctor's body, apparently killing him. The Doctor's body is taken to the morgue, while Lee steals the Doctor's possessions, including the TARDIS key. Meanwhile, the ooze takes over the body of the ambulance driver, Bruce, transforming him into a new body for the Master. Later, the Doctor's body regenerates, and the new Doctor, suffering amnesia, gathers clothes from an upcoming fancy dress party. He recognises Holloway, who has resigned from the hospital after the failed operation, and follows her to her car, proving to her he is the same man by pulling out the cardiac probe. Holloway takes him home to recover. Lee returns to the TARDIS where the Master arrives and puts him under his mind control by claiming the Doctor had stolen his body. The Master convinces Lee to open the TARDIS and then to open the Eye of Harmony within it, which requires a human retinal scan. When the Eye opens, the Doctor is flooded with memories and realises the Master is searching for him, and tries to block the scan. He warns Holloway that while the Eye is opened, the fabric of reality will weaken, and potentially destroy the Earth by midnight on New Year's Eve if they cannot close it. However, he needs an atomic clock to do so, and Holloway finds one on display at the San Francisco Institute of Technological Advancement and Research. Outside, they find the ambulance with the Master and Lee waiting for them, offering them a ride. The Doctor does not immediately recognise the Master, but discovers his true identity en route, and he and Holloway escape, but not before the Master can spit an ooze-like substance on Holloway's wrist. The two continue to the Institute and obtain the clock, returning to the TARDIS. The Doctor installs the clock and successfully closes the Eye, but finds the damage to reality too great and that he must revert time before the Eye was opened to prevent the destruction of Earth. As he connects the proper TARDIS circuits to do this, the Master remotely takes control of Holloway's body, causing her eyes to become inhuman, and she strikes the Doctor unconscious. The Doctor and the Master in their climactic battle The Doctor wakes to find himself chained above the Eye, the Master poised to take his remaining regenerations while Lee and Holloway watch. The Doctor is able to break the Master's control on Lee, and Lee refuses to open the Eye for the Master. The Master kills him, and then releases his control on Holloway to return her eyes to normal. He forces her to open the Eye and then begins drawing the Doctor's lifeforce. Holloway, under her own control, is able to complete the final circuits to put the TARDIS into a time-holding pattern, preventing Earth's destruction, and then goes to free the Doctor. The Master kills her, but this has given enough time for the Doctor to free himself and attack the Master. The Doctor gains the upper hand and pushes the Master into the Eye. The Eye closes and time reverts a few minutes, undoing Lee and Holloway's deaths. With no further risk to Earth, the Doctor prepares to leave. Lee returns his possessions, and the Doctor warns him not to be in San Francisco on the next New Year's Eve. The Doctor offers Holloway the opportunity to travel with him, but she politely refuses, and instead kisses him goodbye. The Doctor departs alone in his TARDIS. 

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In the twenty-first century the creation of the positronic brain leads to the development of robot laborers and revolutionizes life on Earth. Yet to the Martin family, their household robot NDR-113 is more than a mechanical servant. "Andrew" has become a trusted friend, a confidant, and a member of the Martin family. The story is told from the perspective of Andrew (later known as Andrew Martin), an NDR-series robot owned by the Martin family, a departure from the usual practice by U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men of leasing robots. Andrew's initial experiences with the Martin family are replete with awkward moments which demonstrate his lack of socialization. However, he is much better with inanimate objects and animals and begins to display sentient characteristics (such as creativity; emotion; self-awareness) traditionally the province of humans. He is taken off his mundane household duties, for which he was intended, and allowed to pursue his creativity, making a fortune by selling his creations. Andrew seeks legal protection stemming from his initial creative output and eventual full recognition as a human, by gradually replacing his robotic components with synthetic organs, and citing the process as a transformation from robot to human. Succeeding generations of the Martin family assist him in his quest for humanity, but each is limited to what degree they are prepared to acknowledge Andrew's humanity. In The Positronic Man, the trends of fictional robotics in Asimov's Robot series (as outlined in the book I, Robot) are detailed as background events, with an indication that they are influenced by Andrew's story. No more robots in Andrew's line are developed. There is also a movement towards centralized processing, including centralized control of robots, which would avoid any more self-reflecting robots such as Andrew. Only when Andrew allows his positronic brain to "decay", thereby willfully abandoning his immortality, is he declared a human being. This event takes place on the two-hundredth anniversary of his creation, hence the title of the novella and film. 

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With the same premise as Sykes and a..., unmarried twins Eric and Harriet (Hat) Sykes are now living at an end of terrace house, 28 Sebastopol Terrace, East Acton, two doors down from their house in the previous programme. As before, Eric is childish and accident-prone while Hattie is patient. Their neighbour is the snobbish unmarried Charles Fulbright-Brown, and PC Corky Turnbull is the local policeman. Corky's wife, Elsie, is unseen, except for one episode, Caravan, in which she appears with her face covered in porridge during a food fight between Corky and Eric. Deryck Guyler also played Corky's brother Wilfred Turnbull, a train attendant on the Glasgow to London sleeper train, in the episode Journey. Following the death of Richard Wattis in 1975 a new neighbour, Melody Rumbelow, moves in. The local baker is the widowed Madge Kettlewell (Joan Sims), who appears occasionally, and who fancies Eric - she is first seen in the episode Football. Eric and Hattie are also the owners of a cuckoo clock, naming the very temperamental bird inside Peter. Both speak to it as if it were a real bird, and a great deal of comedy derives from the antagonistic and sarcastic 'conversations' between Eric and Peter. 

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Krank (Daniel Emilfork), a highly intelligent but malicious being created by a vanished scientist, is unable to dream, which causes him to age prematurely. At his lair on an abandoned oil rig (which he shares with the scientist's other creations: six childish clones, a dwarf named Martha, and a brain in a vat named Irvin), he uses a dream-extracting machine to steal dreams from children. The children are kidnapped for him from a nearby port city by a cyborg cult called the Cyclops, who in exchange he supplies with mechanical eyes and ears. Among the kidnapped is Denree (Joseph Lucien), the adopted little brother of carnival strongman One (Ron Perlman). After the carnival manager is stabbed by a mugger, One is hired by a criminal gang of orphans (run by a pair of Siamese twins called "the Octopus") to help them steal a safe. The theft is successful, but the safe is lost in the harbor when One is distracted by seeing Denree's kidnappers. He, together with one of the orphans, a little girl called Miette (Judith Vittet), follows the Cyclops and infiltrates their headquarters, but they are captured and sentenced to execution. Meanwhile, the Octopus orders circus performer Marcello (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) to return One to them. He uses his trained fleas, which inject a poison capsule that causes mindless aggression, to turn the Cyclops guards against each other. While Marcello is rescuing One, Miette falls into the harbor and sinks, seemingly drowned, but an amnesiac diver living beneath the harbor rescues her. Miette leaves the diver's lair to find One and Marcello both drowning their sorrows in a bar. Upon seeing Miette alive the remorseful Marcello lets One leave with her. However the Octopus confronts them on the pier, and uses Marcello's stolen fleas to turn One against Miette. A spectacular chain of events triggered by one of Miette's tears leads to a ship crashing into the pier before One can throttle her. Marcello arrives and sets the fleas on the Octopus, allowing One and Miette to escape to continue searching for Denree. Back at Krank's oil rig, Irvin tricks one of the clones into releasing a plea for help in the form of a bottled dream telling the story of what is going on on the oil rig. It reaches One, Miette, and the diver, and the latter remembers that he was the scientist who made them, and that the oil rig was his laboratory before Krank and Martha attacked him and pushed him off it to take it for themselves, leaving him for dead in the water. They all converge on the rig; the diver to destroy it and the duo to rescue Denree. Miette is almost killed by Martha, but the diver harpoons her. She then finds Denree asleep in Krank's dream-extracting machine, and Irvin tells her that to release him she must use the machine to enter the dream herself. In the dream world, she meets Krank and makes a deal with him to replace the boy as the source of the dream; Krank fears a trap but plays along, believing himself to be in control. Miette then uses her imagination to control the dream and turn it into an infinite loop, destroying Krank's mind. One and Miette rescue all the children, while the now-deranged diver loads the rig with dynamite and straps himself to one of its legs. The diver regains his senses as everyone is rowing away and pleads with his remaining creations to come back to rescue him, but a seabird lands on the handle of the blasting machine, blowing up him and the rig. 

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Junta Momonari is a high school student with an unusual problem. Whenever he becomes sexually aroused by a woman, his "female allergy" kicks in, causing the poor boy to throw up. Needless to say, he is a complete failure with women, with no hope in sight. Then, one fateful day, Junta is confronted by an attractive girl in strange clothing who claims to be from the future. The girl gives Junta her name as Karin Aoi, and tells him about how the world has become terribly overpopulated in her time, to the point where having more than one child is a crime punishable by death. At the root of the problem is a family of "Mega-Playboys": people with sexual charisma and impulses that lead each of them to have 100 children that carry the Mega-Playboy DNA, causing them and all their descendants to each have 100 children as well. All this started with a single Mega-Playboy, whom Karin has travelled back into the past to deal with. Karin reveals to Junta that she is a "DNA Operator". Her job is to make alterations in people's DNA that will change their nature for the greater good of society. She intends to shoot the original Mega-Playboy with a DCM ("DNA Control Medicine") bullet that will alter his DNA in order to relieve him of his mega-playboy qualities, thus preventing the overpopulation problem from ever happening. She can then return to the future to receive the reward that will allow her to finally get the "nice husband, cute pet, and sweet, sweet home" she yearns for. She confirms Junta's identity, then, to his shock, promptly shoots him. It seems that Junta, the boy who couldn't look at a naked woman without throwing up, was destined to become the original Mega-Playboy later in his life. Escaping back to her time machine, Karin arrives to a message from her boss in the future. Her hopes for a commendation on a job well done are dashed when her rather upset employer points out that the DCM bullet she was supposed to use on the Mega-Playboy was left behind in the future. By shooting Junta with the wrong DCM bullet—one which Karin planned on using to create an ideal husband—rather than eliminating the Mega-Playboy, Karin actually created him! Now unable to return to the future until she sets things right, Karin decides to improvise by making Junta get together with the only girl who does not give him an allergic reaction: his childhood friend Ami Kurimoto (despite him not feeling any romantic affection for her, since he sees her more as a sister). 

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The plot of this veritable epic is set in 1555, on a small island in the Guanabara Bay of Rio de Janeiro, where an odd French expeditionary force, made up of sailors, craftsmen, priests, ex-convicts and a Quixotic knight, has just landed. Their objective is twofold: on the one hand, to set up a French colony on this far-off rich continent to compete with the Portuguese, on the other hand, to convert the Indians to Christianity. Ill-prepared for the realities of the New World and, above all, torn apart by theological controversy which sets the Catholics and Calvinists among them against one another, these French pioneers see their dreams of colonisation gradually dissipate. Both satirical and colourful, Rouge Brésil is above all a passionate and exciting exploration of the origins of imperialist thinking. 

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Maggie Prescott, a fashion magazine publisher and editor for Quality magazine, is looking for the next big fashion trend. She wants a new look which is to be both "beautiful" and "intellectual". She and top fashion photographer Dick Avery want models who can "think as well as they look." The two brainstorm and come up with the idea to use a book store in Greenwich Village as backdrop. They find what they want in "Embryo Concepts", which is being run by the shy shop assistant and amateur philosopher, Jo Stockton. Jo thinks the fashion and modelling industry is nonsense, calling it "chichi, and an unrealistic approach to self-impressions as well as economics". Maggie decides to use Jo but after the first shot Jo is locked outside to keep her from interrupting Maggie’s take-over of the shop. The crew leaves the store in a shambles; Dick stays behind to help clean up and apologizes to Jo, then kisses her impulsively. Jo dismisses him, but her song "How Long Has This Been Going On?" shows that she feels the stirrings of romance. What Jo wants above all is to go to Paris and attend the famous professor Emile Flostre's philosophy lectures about empathicalism. When Dick gets back to the darkroom, he sees something in Jo's face which is new and fresh and would be perfect for the campaign, giving it "character", "spirit", and "intelligence". They send for Jo, pretending they want to order some books from her shop. Once she arrives, they try to make her over and attempt to cut her hair. She is outraged and runs away, only to hide in the darkroom where Dick is working. When Dick mentions Paris, Jo becomes interested in the chance to see Professor Flostre and is finally persuaded to model for the magazine. Soon, Maggie, Dick, and Jo are off to Paris to prepare for a major fashion event, shooting photos at famous landmarks from the area. During the various shoots, Jo and Dick fall in love. One night, when Jo is getting ready for a gala, she learns that Flostre is giving a lecture at a cafe nearby, which she attends. Eventually, Dick brings her back and they get into an argument at the gala's opening, which results in Jo being publicly embarrassed and Maggie outraged. Jo goes to talk to Flostre at his home. Through some scheming, Maggie and Dick gain entrance to the soirée there. After performing an impromptu song and dance for Flostre's disciples, they confront Jo and Flostre. This leads to Dick causing Flostre to fall and knock himself out. Jo urges them to leave but when Flostre comes round, he tries to seduce her. Shocked at the behavior of her "idol", she smashes a vase over his head and runs out, returning just in time to take part in the final fashion show. During this, Maggie tries to get in touch with Dick, who has made plans to leave Paris. Before her wedding gown finale, Jo looks out the window and sees the plane Dick was supposed to be on flying over the city. Believing that he has refused to return to her, she runs off the runway in tears at the conclusion of the show. Meanwhile, Dick is still at the airport. He runs into Flostre and learns how Jo had attacked him. Realizing how much Jo cares, Dick returns to the fashion show, but Jo is nowhere to be found. Finally, after applying the insights of empathicalism at Maggie's behest, Dick guesses that Jo would return to the church where he had photographed her in a wedding dress and they shared their first romantic moment. On his arrival there himself, he finds Jo (in the wedding gown) by a little brook. They join in the duet "'S Wonderful" and embrace. 

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The story follows a Japanese salaryman in a big city, who falls in love with , a kindergarten teacher. Masuo tries repeatedly to court Nagisa, but every time he seems to make progress, something inevitably goes wrong. Nagisa, in fact, likes Masuo, but due to a previous heartbreak, she constantly pushes him away. As the series progresses, it becomes more thoughtful and mature, with many of the problems evolving out of the characters' personalities rather than being imposed artificially by circumstances. Many of the coincidental misunderstandings have to do with Masuo interacting with coworker , the daughter of the company president, who has fallen in love with Masuo, but Masuo lacks the confidence to believe it to be true. Initially, Masuo has to face two other comical suitors for Nagisa's love. One being Kaizuka, a tall muscular physical education high school teacher, and Kujira, a short rich and perverted real estate agent. Later on he has to face much more serious competition from Nagisa's first love, Minato. At one point later on in the manga, Masuo takes in a pregnant woman out of compassion. This information makes its way to Nagisa, but in a different form; she is told that the girl is pregnant with his child, but she eventually determines the truth for herself. The series ends with Nagisa having their child named Yuka in her arm smiling happily. The TV series takes a more comedic tone than the OVA and involves much of the early unlucky coincidences from the manga. In the TV series, Masuo faces no competition from other suitors but merely must face Nagisa's difficulty with men while Kaizuka and Kujira appear in the OVA to try to win Nagisa's love. 

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In 1933, during the Great Depression, New York City actress Ann Darrow is hired by financially troubled filmmaker Carl Denham to star in a film alongside actor Bruce Baxter. Ann learns her favorite playwright, Jack Driscoll, is the screenwriter. Filming takes place on the SS Venture, under Captain Englehorn, and under Carl's pretense that it will be sailing to Singapore. In truth, Carl intends to sail to and film the mysterious Skull Island. Captain Englehorn has second thoughts about the voyage, prompted by his crew's speculation of trouble ahead. On the voyage, Ann and Jack fall in love. The Venture receives a radio message informing Englehorn there is a warrant for Carl's arrest due to his defiance of the studio's orders to cease production. The message instructs Englehorn to divert to Rangoon, but the ship becomes lost in fog and runs aground on Skull Island. Carl and his crew explore the island and are attacked by natives who kill two members of the crew. Englehorn intervenes and rescues the film crew, but as they make efforts to leave the waters, a native sneaks onto the ship and kidnaps Ann. The natives offer Ann as a sacrifice to Kong, a gorilla. Jack notices Ann's disappearance, and the crew returns to the island, but are too late as Kong flees with Ann into the jungle. Carl manages to catch a glimpse of Kong and becomes determined to capture him on film. Though initially terrified of her captor, Ann wins Kong over with her juggling and dancing skills and begins to grasp Kong's intelligence and capacity for emotion. Englehorn organises a rescue party, led by his first mate Hayes and Jack, and accompanied by the film crew. The party is caught in the middle of a pack of Utahraptor-like Venatosaurus saevidicus and the herd of Brontosaurus they are hunting, with several killed in the resulting stampede. After this, Baxter leaves the group to return to the ship. The remaining members of the party continue through the jungle when Kong attacks, making them fall into a ravine resulting in Hayes' death and Carl losing his camera. Kong returns to Ann and saves her from three dinosaurs, before taking her to his lair in the mountains. The remaining rescue party are attacked by giant insects in the ravine and rescued by Baxter and Englehorn. As Jack continues searching for Ann, Carl decides to capture Kong. Jack goes to Kong's lair, inadvertently waking him and provoking a swarm of large bat-like creatures. As Kong fights them off, Ann and Jack escape. They arrive at the wall with Kong pursuing them, and Ann becomes distraught by what Carl plans to do. Kong bursts through the gate to get Ann back, killing several sailors but is subdued when Carl knocks him out with chloroform. In New York City, Carl presents "Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World" on Broadway, starring Baxter and an imprisoned Kong. Ann is played by an anonymous chorus girl, as she refused to take part in the performance. Agitated by the flashing of the cameras, Kong breaks free from his chains and wrecks the theater. He chases Jack out into the metropolitan streets and searches for Ann. Kong knocks Jack unconscious, then encounters Ann again, who is able to calm him. Kong and Ann share a moment on a frozen pond in Central Park until the U.S. Army attacks. Kong climbs with Ann onto the top of the Empire State Building, where he fights off six Navy planes. Kong is mortally wounded by the planes' gunfire and falls from the building. As Jack takes an elevator to the top of the building and reunites with Ann, civilians, policemen, and soldiers gather around Kong's corpse in the street. One bystander comments that the airplanes got him. Carl makes his way through the crowd, takes one last look at Kong and says, "It wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast." 

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Alice Tate is an upper-class New York housewife, who spends her days shopping, getting beauty treatments, and gossiping with her friends. She has been married to wealthy Doug for fifteen years, and they have two children, who are being raised by a nanny. One day, she has a brief encounter with Joe Ruffalo, a handsome jazz musician. She finds herself mysteriously attracted to him and experiences Catholic guilt for these feelings. This inner turmoil manifests itself in a backache. She is referred to Dr. Yang, an Asian herbalist who puts her under hypnosis. She reveals that what initially attracted her to her husband were in fact his superficial qualities: looks and money. She also reveals her feelings about Joe. Dr. Yang gives Alice ancient herbs that make her act on her feelings toward Joe Ruffalo. They agree to meet. When the herbs wear off, Alice is appalled at her behavior. She does not go to meet him as planned. The next herbs she receives turn her invisible. She spies on Joe going to visit his ex- wife Vicki. Much to prudish Alice's horror, they make love in Vicki's office. Alice is now glad she did not go to meet Joe. However, the next herbal remedy allows Alice to communicate with the ghost of her first lover, Ed. He encourages her to find out more about Joe. Alice and Joe finally meet, under the pretense of their children having a 'play-date'. Alice and Joe's meetings become increasingly frequent. When her guilt over her relationship with Joe becomes too much, Alice returns to Dr. Yang. Inhaling the soothing contents of a pipe, Alice falls asleep in Dr. Yang's rooms. She has vivid dreams about her Catholic upbringing. She remembers her mother. She remembers that she was at her happiest when she was helping people. She realizes that she has lost sight of many of her goals in her materialistic luxurious lifestyle. She also realizes this at a fundraising evening in honor of Mother Teresa, one of Alice's idols. After the fundraiser, Joe and Alice sleep together. Alice realizes she is falling in love with him. Alice shares the remaining invisibility herbs with Joe. She hears two of her friends gossiping about her and Joe. The gossip then moves onto Doug, where it is revealed that he has been having affairs, too. Invisible, Alice goes to his office party, where she sees Doug kissing a colleague. Her invisibility wears off and she confronts Doug about his affairs. Alice decides to leave Doug once and for all. She tells this to Joe. However, Joe has decided to reunite with his ex-wife after he spied on her therapy sessions when invisible and realized she still has feelings for him. Stunned, Alice goes to Dr. Yang, who is leaving town. He gives her one final packet of herbs, telling her that these will create a potent love potion. Alice must choose between Joe and Doug. She goes to her sister Dorothy for advice. However, Dorothy is having a Christmas party, and the herbs get mixed in with the eggnog. All the men in the party become enamored with Alice. She flees in panic. At home, Alice tells Doug that their marriage is over. She reveals her plans to go to Calcutta and work with Mother Teresa. Doug scoffs at this, doubting that Alice could survive without the luxuries she has grown accustomed to. However, Doug is proved wrong. Alice goes to Calcutta, where she meets Mother Teresa. On returning to New York, she moves into a modest apartment, raises the children on her own, and does volunteer work in her spare time. 

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Anna Leonowens (Jodie Foster) is a British widow who has come to Siam with her son Louis (Tom Felton) to teach English to the dozens of children of King Mongkut (Chow Yun-fat). She is a strong-willed, intelligent, valiant and benevolent woman for her time, and this pleases the King. Mongkut wants to modernize Siam, thinking this will help his country resist colonialism and protect the ancient traditions that give Siam its identity. Mongkut and Anna discuss differences between Eastern and Western love, but he dismisses the notion that a man can be happy with only one wife. In order to win favors through Britain's ambassadors, Mongkut orders a sumptuous reception and appoints Anna to organize it. During the reception, the King spars graciously and wittily with Sir Mycroft Kincaid (Bill Stewart), of the East India Company. The Europeans express their beliefs that Siam is a superstitious, backward nation. Mongkut dances with Anna at the reception. Anna is enchanted by the royal children, particularly Princess Fa- Ying (Melissa Campbell). The little girl adores the playful monkeys who live in the royal garden's trees. When Fa-Ying falls sick with cholera, Anna is summoned to her chambers to say goodbye. She gets there just as Fa-Ying dies in King Mongkut's arms, and the two mourn together. Mongkut later finds that one of the monkeys "borrowed" his glasses as his daughter (Goh Yi Wai) used to do. He finds comfort for his grief in his belief in reincarnation, with a notion that Fa-ying might be reborn as one of her beloved animals. Lady Tuptim (Bai Ling), the King's newest concubine, was already engaged to marry another man, Khun Phra Balat (Sean Ghazi), when she was brought to court. Mongkut is kind to her, but Tuptim yearns for her true love. She disguises herself as a young man and runs away, joining the monastery where her former fiancé lives. She is tracked down, returned to the palace, and put on trial where she is caned. Anna, unable to bear the sight, tries to prevent the execution and is forcibly removed from the court. Her outburst prevents Mongkut from showing clemency, because he cannot be seen as beholden to her, though he feels ashamed. Tuptim and Balat are beheaded publicly. Siam is under siege from what appears to be a British-funded coup d'état against King Mongkut, using Burmese soldiers. Mongkut sends his brother Prince Chaofa (Kay Siu Lim) and military advisor General Alak (Randall Duk Kim) and their troops to investigate. However, it turns out Alak is really the man behind the coup, and he poisons the regiment and kills Chaofa. Alak then flees into Burma, where he summons and readies troops to invade Siam, kill King Mongkut and all his children as revenge since he blames him for his family's death. Mongkut's army is too far from the palace to engage the rebels, so he creates a ruse - that a white elephant has been spotted, and the court must go to see it. This allows him to flee the palace with his children and wives, and give his armies time to reach them. Anna returns to help Mongkut, since her presence in his entourage will give credence to the tale about the white elephant. Mongkut plans to take his family to a monastery where he spent part of his life. Halfway through the journey they see Alak's army in the distance and realize they can't outrun him. Mongkut and his soldiers set explosives on a wooden bridge high above a canyon floor as Alak and his army approach. Mongkut orders his "army" to stay back and rides to the bridge with only two soldiers. Alak, at the head of his army, confronts Mongkut on the bridge. Anna and Louis create a brilliant deception from their hiding spot in the forest. Louis uses his horn to replicate the sound of a bugle charge, as Anna "attacks" the area with harmless fireworks. The Burmese, believing the King has brought British soldiers, panic and retreat. Alak's attempt to recall and regroup his troops fails. Alak stands alone, but Mongkut refuses to kill him, saying that Alak will have to live with his shame. As Mongkut turns to ride back to Siam, Alak grabs his gun and aims at his back, but one of Mongkut's guards detonates the explosives. The bridge and Alak are blown to pieces. At the end of the film, Mongkut has one last dance with Anna before she leaves Siam. He tells her that now he understands why a man can be content with only one woman. A voice-over tells viewers that Chulalongkorn became king after his father's death. Chulalongkorn abolished slavery and instituted religious freedom with the help of his father's 'vision'. 

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Julie Styron (Channing) is a middle-aged business woman flying out of town to attend an important meeting. When her CEO contacts her and asks her to meet him for dinner afterward, she worries that her job may be in danger and engages the help of a headhunter named Nick Harris (Fred Weller) to look for a new position. Her mood worsens when her new assistant Paula Murphy (Stiles) is 45 minutes late to the meeting, which as a result goes badly. After its end, Julie fires Paula and they part ways. Later that evening Julie is unexpectedly promoted to CEO of the company. After both their flights home are delayed, Julie and Paula meet up by chance in a hotel bar. Julie apologizes for losing her temper earlier and buys Paula a drink. As they talk, Julie, who gave up having a family for her career, begins to question whether she made the right choice. The two of them visit the gym and the pool before returning to the bar. Nick joins them, explaining that his flight was also canceled. Paula rushes off to the bathroom and is followed by Julie, who wants to know what was wrong. Later, Paula informs her that Nick raped a friend of hers in Boston. Julie is shocked but eventually convinced, and suggests they get revenge. Paula tells her to just forget about it. The two retire to Julie's room, and when Nick knocks on the door later on, Paula invites him in and then drugs him. In order to keep him from realizing what they've done, the two women take him down into a restricted area of the hotel which is being renovated. Julie runs upstairs to get Nick's briefcase, and returns to find Paula stripping him. Paula explains that this way when he wakes up he will hesitate to ask anyone what happened. Paula photographs them all with her Polaroid camera. Paula finds a magic marker and they write words on Nick's chest and back like "pig" and "rapist". They are nearly discovered by a security guard, but he leaves without seeing them. Paula eventually confesses to Julie that it was she who was raped, not her friend -- which Julie had already guessed. They return to Julie's room and sleep. The next morning, Julie finds the word "loser" written in marker on her own stomach, and a few Polaroids on the bed of Paula sitting next to her own sleeping form. At the airport she meets up with Nick again. He reveals that he had never been to Boston, proving Paula's rape story to be an elaborate lie. 

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Val Waxman is a once-prestigious film director who now directs television commercials. When he is thrown off his latest effort (a deodorant commercial filmed in the frozen north of Canada), he desperately seeks a real movie project. Out of the blue, Val receives an offer to direct a big-budget blockbuster to be set in New York City. However, the offer comes from his former wife, Ellie, and her boyfriend, Hal, the studio head who stole her from Val years ago. Pushed by his agent Al Hack, Val reluctantly agrees to the project, but a psychosomatic ailment strikes him blind just before production is to begin. With Al's encouragement and aid, Val keeps his blindness a secret from the cast and crew (and Hal). During filming, Val rekindles his relationship with Ellie and reconnects with his estranged son, Tony, while his much younger girlfriend, Lori, leaves him. When Val regains what had been missing his life, he regains his sight as well, and realizes that the movie he directed while blind is a disaster. Sure enough, the movie flops - but is a hit in France, where he is invited to direct a film. After winning Ellie back, he happily proclaims, "Thank God the French exist." 

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Ben Hildebrand and Eric Kirby go parasailing over the waters near Isla Sorna. The boat's crew disappears, prompting Ben to detach the line before the boat crashes. He and Eric drift towards the island. Eight weeks later, paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant has made a new discovery about the intelligence of Velociraptors, but struggles to secure funding for his research. Grant discusses his discovery of a resonating larynx on fossilized raptor remains with his longtime colleague, Ellie. This, and his experience at Jurassic Park, leads him to believe that the original Velociraptors were socially sophisticated. He hypothesizes that if they had not gone extinct and continued to evolve, their descendants—rather than humans—would have become Earth's dominant species. His assistant, Billy Brennan uses a 3D printer to replicate the Velociraptor larynx. Paul and Amanda Kirby, posing as a wealthy couple, offer funding for Grant's research if he will give them an aerial tour of Isla Sorna. Grant reluctantly agrees and flies there with Paul, Amanda, Billy, and the Kirbys' mercenary associates Udesky, Cooper, and their pilot Nash. During the flight, Grant learns that the Kirbys' plan to land on the island; he protests but Cooper knocks him unconscious. Grant awakens to discover that they have landed. A Spinosaurus approaches the group, who board the plane to escape, leaving Cooper behind as he tries to reach the plane. The Spinosaurus emerges on the runway and devours Cooper. In avoiding the Spinosaurus, the plane crashes into the forest. The Spinosaurus destroys the plane and consumes Nash, who had possession of Paul's satellite phone. Fleeing, the survivors briefly lose the Spinosaurus but encounter a Tyrannosaurus rex. The Spinosaurus returns and the group escapes while the two dinosaurs engage in a battle, with the Spinosaurus killing the Tyrannosaurus. Grant learns that the Kirbys are a middle-class, divorced couple who are looking for their son Eric and Amanda's boyfriend Ben, who went missing on the island. Government agencies declined to help the Kirbys, so they brought Grant along as an expert because of his past experience at Jurassic Park. To their dismay however, Grant explains his previous visit was to Isla Nublar, not Isla Sorna, and as such is just as lost as they are. The group finds Ben's parasail with his corpse attached to it. They take the parasail and then encounter raptor nests, and find an abandoned InGen compound. A raptor chases them and summons the rest of its pack. The humans flee into a herd of Corythosaurus and Parasaurolophus, causing a stampede, and separating Grant and Udesky from the others. The raptors attack Udesky in an attempt to lure the others out of a tree and almost succeed in attacking Amanda when she tries to descend to help him. The raptors' trap fails and they kill Udesky before departing. Elsewhere, Grant watches the raptors communicating and suspects that they are searching for something. They ambush him but he is rescued by Eric, who has survived in an overturned supply truck. The next day, Grant and Eric are reunited with Billy and the Kirbys after Eric hears the ringtone of his dad's satellite phone. The group is then chased by the Spinosaurus, but manage to lock it out by entering an abandoned observatory. Grant discovers that Billy has taken two raptor eggs to use for funding, which provoked the raptor attacks. Grant decides to keep the eggs to ensure the group's survival. The group unknowingly enters a large aviary used to house Pteranodons, which attack the group and fly away with Eric. Billy rescues Eric using Ben's parasail, but is then attacked and seemingly killed by the Pteranodons. The rest of the group escapes the aviary, unknowingly leaving the door unlocked. They find a boat and make their way down a river. That night, the group retrieves the ringing satellite phone from the feces of the Spinosaurus. Grant contacts Ellie and tells her where they are but the Spinosaurus attacks the boat. Grant ignites the boat's fuel, causing the Spinosaurus to flee. The next morning, the group makes its way towards the coast but are surrounded by the raptors. They surrender the eggs to the raptors while Grant uses the replica raptor larynx to confuse the pack, which runs off with the eggs. The group reach the coast and see that Ellie had called in the Marine Corps and the Navy to rescue them. They discover that Billy, while seriously injured, has also been rescued. As they leave the island, they see the Pteranodons fly by. 

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Jerry Falk (Biggs), an aspiring writer living in New York City, has a girlfriend, Brooke (Strickland). He falls in love with Amanda (Ricci) and has an affair with her. Brooke finds out of Jerry's infidelity and leaves him. Amanda leaves her own boyfriend for Jerry. Jerry turns to aging, struggling artist David Dobel (Allen, loosely based on David Panich) who acts as his mentor, which includes trying to help sort out Jerry's romantic life. Dobel says that when he told a cab driver of all his anxieties and phobias in life, the cab driver told him, "It's like anything else". Dobel tries to convince Jerry that his manager is only holding him back and his relationship with Amanda is the most destructive force in his life. Amanda continuously cheats on Jerry. Amanda leaves and then comes back. Jerry's neuroses start to worsen. Eventually, Jerry leaves town as Dobel gets him a job writing for television in California. Amanda has an affair with the doctor who was treating her and runs off with him. He sees them together laughing as she once did with him as the cab is taking him towards the airport. Jerry talks to the cabbie of love and relationships. The cabbie simply replies, "It's like anything else". 

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The anti-hero of the story, Theodore Honey, is engaged in research on the fatigue of aluminium airframes. His current project, overseen by Dr. Dennis Scott, is to investigate possible failure in the high aspect ratio tailplane of a new airliner, the fictional "Rutland Reindeer". Honey, a widower, must bring up his young daughter, Elspeth. The events are narrated by Scott in the first person. Honey is unimpressive in appearance and is so intensely focused on his work that his relations with the outside world – never that good to begin with – suffer badly. Throughout the story, people judge him by that appearance, or by his varied and unconventional outside interests, such as pyramidology, the study of possible esoteric interpretations of the Pyramids. Honey has predicted, by a (fictional) theory supposedly related to quantum mechanics, that it is possible for an aluminium alloy structure to fail long before the design lifetime predicted by the usual design standards. He is using a spare tailplane from a Reindeer aircraft in a fatigue test. Honey's theory predicts that the metal at the root of the tailplane will suffer from metal fatigue and fail with a crystalline fracture. For Mr. Honey, this seems merely to be an esoteric and engaging problem in pure science; for Scott it is a concern of the first magnitude, as Reindeer aircraft are crossing the North Atlantic daily, carrying hundreds of passengers. Honey's prediction becomes all the more alarming when Scott links it with the recent crash of a Reindeer carrying the Soviet ambassador, which had total flying hours close to Honey's estimate, and which crashed in northeastern Quebec. The crash report, including photographs, is inconclusive, and Scott feels that the remains of the aircraft must be physically examined. Honey is sent to Canada to examine the debris of the crash, travelling on board a Reindeer aircraft on which he meets the two heroines of the novel, Corder and Teasdale. During the flight, Honey discovers from the cockpit crew that the flying hours of this aircraft are twice those of any other Reindeer in service, and are close to his predicted failure time. He becomes increasingly anxious for its safety. He confides in Teasdale, whose films he admires, and goes on to give her some advice on the safest place to go in the aircraft in the event of a crash. Despite his alarm, he remains persuasive and sincere, and impresses Corder and Teasdale. He also impresses the pilot, Samuelson, who knew the captain of the recently crashed Reindeer and had rejected with scorn the official inquiry's conclusion that the crash was the result of pilot error. During a heated discussion during a stopover at Gander International Airport, Honey realises that he has failed to persuade anyone to declare the Reindeer unfit for service, and in desperation, he disables it by disengaging the safety interlocks and raising its undercarriage while it is standing on the tarmac, leaving the aircraft damaged and unable to move. Honey is recalled to Farnborough after this sabotage, but he is delayed because C.A.T.O., the fictional operator of the damaged aircraft, refuses to carry him. While he is away, trouble arises on a second front. For the duration of his trip, he has left Elspeth in their shabby, neglected home in Farnham, with only the supervision of the unreliable cleaning woman. Shirley Scott finds Elspeth unconscious, confirming her misgivings about the state of Honey's home life, and nurses her. Elspeth displays a touching mix of precocity and serious intelligence, but betrays Honey's hobbies of spiritualism and prophecy. That notwithstanding, Elspeth's outlook is tempered with serious thought and childhood happiness in simple things. Teasdale visits Dr. Scott at Farnborough and relates her story of events to the Director of the RAE before offering Elspeth some feminine care and affection. Her affection for Honey is obvious, but she realises it is not to be – she cannot give him children or sustain him in his work. She is rapidly followed by Corder, who bears Honey's letter of resignation to Scott and her own account of the events in Gander. By the time Honey returns, Scott has left for Canada to retrieve the tailplane roots. On reaching the crash site he discovers that the parts of the aircraft adjacent to where the tailplane separated have been removed by the Soviet party who came to recover the body of their Ambassador. The Soviet authorities suspect that the crash was part of a plot to assassinate the ambassador, and are wholly unhelpful when approached for information about the missing tailplane root. The tailplane itself remains lost in the wilderness, but must be found if there is any hope of proving the existence of metal fatigue. Honey comes to the rescue, but in a highly unorthodox way. He puts his daughter into a light trance which, to Corder's shock, Elspeth has clearly experienced before. Using a planchette and automatic writing, a message is written: UNDER THE FOOT OF THE BEAR. Sceptical of the message's value, the Director refuses to send it to Scott, and a heated exchange follows. The Director points out that "the bear" could just as plausibly refer merely to the Soviet Union and that the message tells them no more than they already know. With Corder's and Samuelson's help and their C.A.T.O. contacts, Honey manages to have the message passed to Scott in the Canadian woods. Scott and his party work out that "the bear" could refer to a lake, Dancing Bear Water, 30 or 40 miles back along the flight path of the lost aircraft, and there, in due course, they find the tailplane. Its front spar root reveals a classic fatigue fracture. The find vindicates Honey's theory and makes him a minor hero in aviation circles – to which he is indifferent. His early warning even allows for a timely redesign by the manufacturers, ensuring no loss of service of the Reindeers over the Atlantic. Corder and Honey finally marry one another. 

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A Small Killing is a novel which looks inward, examining the images of one man's inner world. The protagonist is an ad company executive looking for inspiration for his latest project. This character is rather the apotheosis of 1980s culture and serves as commentary of it. Seeking inspiration for the above-mentioned project he returns to his home town to confront his perceptions of the past and himself. 

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McMillan & Wife revolved around a 40-ish San Francisco police commissioner, Stuart McMillan (Rock Hudson) and his attractive, bright, affable wife Sally (Susan Saint James), who was in her 20s. Often, the storylines featured Mac and Sally attending fashionable parties and charity benefits before solving robberies and murders. John Schuck appeared as McMillan's likeable, somewhat bumbling aide Sgt. Charles Enright and Nancy Walker played Mildred, the couple's sarcastic, hard-drinking maid, both characters serving as comic relief. Sally is pregnant at the end of season 1, but this is apparently retconned away and is never mentioned in later seasons. She is pregnant again in season 4, and has the baby (a boy) in the final episode of season 4. The baby is not seen or mentioned in season 5. 

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A woman (later revealed to be a transvestite), dancing provocatively to the enjoyment of other nightclub patrons, is abruptly hit in the face by Hubert Florentini (Reno), a commisaire of the French Police. Florentini drags her out of the club in handcuffs, assaulting other patrons who come too close to free the captive woman or attempt to hinder his exit. Unfortunately, one of these patrons includes the chief's son. Florentini is chastised for the violent and unorthodox methods that he uses to accomplish his goals and is put on paid leave from the force. Despite his success and his seemingly enjoyable lifestyle of fighting crime, playing golf, and being the object of a beautiful woman's (Bouquet's) attentions, he has been unable to forget his one true love, Miko, a Japanese spy he met 19 years prior. Upon receiving news of her death, he is summoned to Japan by her lawyer, Ishibashi (Haruhiko Hirata) for the reading of her will. Ishibashi informs Florentini that he has inherited the guardianship of Yumi (Hirosue), a fiery, adorable and eccentric Japanese/French teenage girl over whom he has custody until she reaches adulthood in two days (the age of adulthood in Japan being 20). Yumi, who was led to believe she was the result of her mother's rape and subsequent abandonment, hates her unknown father. Florentini realizes Yumi is his daughter, but doesn't tell her as she would probably flee from him. Florentini uncovers evidence that Miko was the victim of foul play. He discovers that Miko had stolen a small fortune from the Yakuza, a fortune now destined for Yumi upon reaching adulthood. Florentini summons the help of Momo (Michel Muller), a former intelligence colleague living in Tokyo. He helps Florentini with further investigations into Miko's death and in guarding Yumi from the Yakuza by supplying him with two metal suitcases of weapons. The Yakuza try to attack Yumi in an arcade, but Florentini, who has been observing their positions, kills all of them. Later, Yumi discovers that Florentini is her father as she is captured by the Yakuza. As they take her away and prepare to execute Florentini, he uses golf balls to knock out his would-be executioners and knock out the rest in mêlée combat. With the help of former intelligence colleagues, Florentini and Momo free Yumi from her kidnappers when they attempt to withdraw money from Yumi's bank account by replacing the bank's staff and customers with their own men. During the rescue attempt a gunfight breaks out and all of the Yakuza are killed by Florentini single-handedly without any casualties to the good guys. Following the ordeal, Florentini takes a flight back to France, having promised Yumi he would be back in a month. But just before the plane takes off, a group of customs officers enter the cabin with two familiar metal suitcases in hand, asking for their owner. 

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Justice is set in a Japanese high school, where Mr. Robert's class is doing a running translation of the Potsdam Declaration. The action in the classroom is centered on: *Mr. Robert's lifeless, monotonous recitation of the document. *Itadaki's hurried efforts to write it all down in grammatically correct Japanese prose. *An unnamed student's creation of pornographic flipbook animation in the corner of one of his textbooks. *The initially drowsy Tojo. Tojo, who is not paying attention, wakes up when he realizes a girls' gym class is running the hurdles outside. He clears the books and blank notes off his desk and begins to watch. Using the five-stroke Chinese character "正", Tojo keeps a running tally of when the girls readjust their buruma (literally "bloomers", roughly the same as the spankies cheerleaders and female volleyball players wear). Each readjustment is recorded with a color (red, blue, or green) and emphasized for the audience by the sound of snapping spandex. The stunning Hoshi notices Tojo staring at her and she self-consciously puts her all into her time. When she trips over a hurdle and hits the asphalt, Tojo can't hide his alarm. Immediately, Mr. Robert turns on him and lectures about focusing on Potsdam rather than buruma. He uses racist language -- "What do you Japs mean by this character?" -- when he asks Tojo about the "正正正" written on the desk; Tojo's reply is "justice" ("justice" being 正義 in Japanese). After Mr. Robert looks out the window, who is astonished by the girls' beauty at the first sight, he throws Tojo out of class and tells him in English and Japanese to "get out in the hall". The girls' gym class comes back into the building and Hoshi flirtatiously confronts Tojo, who sprouts a nosebleed when he sees her adjust her bloomers. He denies all wrongdoing but grins at the camera and displays a "V" for "victory" once Hoshi's back is turned. 

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The novel begins at a speakeasy in Harlem on New Year's Eve, where protagonist Max Disher's romantic advances are rejected by a white woman solely because he is black. The following morning, he reads about a new scientific procedure for turning black skin white called "Black-No-More," and he decides to go through with the procedure. As the Black-No-More procedure grows increasingly popular, it wreaks havoc on the social and economic institutions of Harlem, drawing resistance from leaders in the African American community. It also draws fierce resistance from Southern segregationist organizations. Meanwhile, Max—who has now changed his name to Matthew Fisher—discovers that life as a white man is not as great as he imagined. In order to earn some money, he joins Reverend Harry Givens's white supremacist organization, The Knights of Nordica, claiming that he has the expertise necessary to help them end Black- No-More. Incidentally, the woman who rejected Matthew at the beginning of the novel is Rev. Givens's daughter, Helen. Now that he is white and a prominent member of a white supremacist organization, Matthew wins Helen's affection and, eventually, her hand in marriage. This becomes dangerous for Matthew, however, when Helen becomes pregnant, raising the specter—faced by an increasing number of newly whitened individuals—of a non-white child betraying his true identity. The Knights of Nordica break into politics, teaming up with the well-funded Anglo-Saxon Association, whose leader, Arthur Snobbcraft, shares the Democratic presidential ticket with Rev. Givens. With fewer and fewer black individuals left for Snobbcraft and Givens to stake their racist positions against, they hire a statistician, Dr. Samuel Buggerie, to conduct a massive inquiry into the genealogy of American citizens and thereby taint their opponents as genealogically, if not epidermically, "black." After a miscarriage, Helen becomes pregnant again, prompting Matthew to keep an airplane and spare cash on hand for a quick escape whenever she happens to go into labor. He decides that, when she gives birth to what will inevitably be their black child, he will ask her either to reject him outright, or to accept him for who he is and leave the country with him. However, with the genealogy project nearing completion on the eve of election day, the results indicate that almost all Americans have at least some African ancestry, including Snobbcraft, Buggerie, Givens, and Helen. These results are stolen by the Republicans and then leaked to the media. When Helen's child is born bi- racial, she blames herself for her undisclosed African-American heritage. Matthew then admits his own heritage, and she accepts him for who he is. A violent mob forms when word spreads of Givens's and Snobbcraft's "impure" ancestry. Snobbcraft and Buggerie flee together on Matthew's airplane, but they are forced to land in Mississippi when they run out of fuel. Afraid of revealing their true identities, they blacken their faces with shoe-polish, which proves to be an unfortunate decision, as they encounter a group of local zealots who have been eagerly waiting for a black person—any black person—to kill. Givens and Snobbcraft remove their disguises and convince the zealots that they are, in fact, white, but just at this moment a newspaper arrives, divulging their true ancestry. Snobbcraft and Buggerie are mutilated and then burned alive. 

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Sam (Christian Bale) and Alex (Kate Beckinsale) are a newly engaged couple who move to Los Angeles to further their careers. Sam is a recently graduated psychiatrist, starting his residency, while Alex, who comes from a very wealthy background, and is also an MD, is finishing her Ph.D. dissertation on genomics. The relatively strait- laced, upwardly mobile couple plan to stay at the vacant home of Sam's mother, Jane (Frances McDormand), a free-spirited record producer in the Laurel Canyon section of the City of Los Angeles. In a change of plans, however, Jane is still around, recording an album with her British boyfriend, Ian McKnight (Alessandro Nivola), and his band. Jane and Ian are in the midst of a fiery romance, and both the producer and the band seem more interested in partying than finishing the record. Jane's presence is a source of consternation for Sam, as he and his mother have a somewhat strained relationship, due to their very different mindsets. Alex, however, is intrigued by the new lifestyle options presented by her soon-to-be mother-in-law. Normally hardworking, Alex begins spending more time with the band and less time working on her dissertation. Her growing fascination with Jane and Ian leads to a scene where the three of them kiss one another while naked in the swimming pool. Meanwhile, Sam finds himself attracted to Israeli fellow resident Sara (Natascha McElhone), who is unapologetically interested in him as well. They share one first kiss while returning from an informal interns' meeting, around the same time Alex has her first tryst with Jane and Ian in the pool. Some time later, while Alex attends Jane and Ian's party held in a crowded hotel suite to celebrate the band's new album release, Sam and Sara meet in a parking lot and, in a conversation filled with sexual tension, they declare their attraction for one another. The situation strains Sam and Alex's relationship almost to the point of breaking by the end of the film. After the party has finished and the three of them are left alone in the suite, Ian tries to "finish" (in his words) his encounter with Alex and Jane, but the latter decides against it and the threesome does not take place. Upon returning home after his conversation with Sara, Sam decides to go to the hotel and discovers Jane, Ian, and Alex scantily-clad in the bedroom. In a fit of rage he repeatedly punches Ian, hits his mother with his elbow as she tries to split up the fight, and leaves the hotel, but Alex chases him down the street and professes her love for him. The next morning, the situation seems back to normal again. But Sara phones Sam and tells him she can't control her heart, as opposed to what he told her the day before. Sam watches his surroundings, postpones any further conversation, and takes a moment of reflection. 

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Morris Buttermaker (Billy Bob Thornton) is a washed-up alcoholic baseball player who was a pitcher for the Seattle Mariners before getting kicked out of professional baseball for attacking an umpire. He works as an exterminator and is a crude womanizer. He is hired by Liz Whitewood to coach the Bears, a children's baseball team with poor playing skills. They play their first game and do not even make an out before he forfeits the game. The entire team decides to quit after but Buttermaker forces them out of quitting and promises to be a better coach. Amanda Whurlitzer (Sammi Kane Kraft), a skilled pitcher, is the 12-year-old daughter of one of his ex-girlfriends. After a couple requests, she decides to join the team. Kelly Leak, a local troublemaker but solid hitter, also joins the team, and the Bears start winning games. Before the championship game Liz congratulates Buttermaker on his success and then they have sex. The Bears eventually make it to the championship game. In the middle of that game, the Bears and Yankees fight after Amanda is shoved during a play at the plate. A few innings later the Yankees coach Ray Bullock (Greg Kinnear) orders his son Joey to intentionally walk Mike Engleberg, one of the Bears' best hitters. Instead of walking him, he almost hits Engleberg, causing Ray to push Joey to the ground in anger. As revenge, Joey throws Engleberg an easy pitch which he smacks for a home run and leaves the game with his mother. Later, Buttermaker changes the lineup, putting the benchwarmers in and taking out some of the good players which causes the Bears to fall behind heading into the last half of the inning. With two outs, one of the Bears players, Garo, drives in two runs and tries to score to tie the game but is thrown out at the plate on a close call, causing the Bears to lose the championship 8–7. After the game, Buttermaker gives them non-alcoholic beer, and they spray it all over each other. Although they did not win the championship, they have the satisfaction of trying, knowing that winning is not so important. 

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The story takes place in the context of Trantor's rise from a large regional power to a galaxy-wide empire, unifying millions of worlds. The approximate date is around the year 11,000 AD (originally 34,500 AD, according to Asimov's early 1950s chronology), when the Trantorian Empire encompasses roughly half of the galaxy. The independent planet Sark rules, and exploits, the planet Florina which orbits the star located nearest to Sark's sun. Sark derives great wealth from kyrt, a natural plant fiber which is extraordinarily useful and versatile, but which cannot be grown on Sark or on any planet other than Florina. The relationship between the two planets is analogous to the situation between European imperial powers and their colonies during the 19th century: native Florinians are forced to work in kyrt fields and are treated as an inferior race by the resident Sarkites. They are also lighter-skinned than most humans on other worlds, but this is no longer viewed as significant. Memories of racism on Earth have been lost. Attempts to break the Sark monopoly and grow kyrt on worlds other than Florina have so far been unsuccessful, because kyrt plants grown on other planets do not produce kyrt, only a useless, inferior form of cellulose; no one understands why. So Sark's wealth depends on its colonial dominance of Florina. The government of Trantor naturally wishes to add the two worlds to its growing empire. The action centers around Rik, a man suffering from gross amnesia and apparent feeble- mindedness. When Rik gradually starts remembering his past, a political crisis involving Sark, Florina, and Trantor ensues. Rik must dodge planetary law- enforcement agents and interstellar spies as he attempts to learn his own history and identity, which the government of Sark is trying to prevent. Ultimately he learns that before losing his memory he was a "spacio-analyst": a specialized astronaut who gathers samples of the very sparse interstellar gasses in outer space, and determines their composition. (The spacio-analysts' slogan is "We analyze nothing".) He also finds out that he had discovered that Florina's sun is about to explode into a nova because it is being exposed to a stream of isolated gaseous carbon atoms flowing through its region of space. The carbon atoms, besides causing Florina's sun to approach nova-stage, are also the reason kyrt grows on Florina: they are causing Florina's sun to emit a special energetic wavelength of light which kyrt plants need in order to bio-synthesize the kyrt fiber. Streams of carbon atoms ("carbon currents") are very rare in space; the reason the plants do not make kyrt when grown on planets orbiting other stars is that Florina is the only known habitable planet whose sun is located in the path of a carbon current. Because losing Florina would mean losing the principal source of Sark's vast wealth, there was strong resistance from the government of Sark to accept Rik's finding; his amnesia was caused by the government's misuse of a mind-altering device called a "psychic probe" in an attempt to suppress his message. However, once Rik recovers his memory and reveals the effect of the carbon atoms, the conditions that enable kyrt to grow can be easily duplicated anywhere now that they are understood. Rik also learns that he was born on the planet Earth, which is now radioactive. He suggests that Earth was the planet where humanity first originated, but this hypothesis remains controversial. 

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The novel is the second part of The Second Foundation Trilogy and takes place almost entirely in the same time frame as "The Psychohistorians," which is the first part of the novel Foundation. In addition to telling a more expanded version of Hari Seldon's confrontation with the Commission of Public Safety it also interweaves R. Daneel Olivaw's struggle against a sect of robots who oppose his plans for humanity. While covering the same period as in Asimov’s “The Psychohistorians,” Foundation and Chaos focuses more on paternal superrobot R Daneel Olivaw than on Hari Seldon. Olivaw’s 20 millennia of machinations and contrivances are questioned by “Calvinian” robots who do not observe Olivaw’s Zeroth Law (“No robot may harm humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm”) developed in Asimov’s Robots and Empire. Olivaw’s actions dampen human intellectual growth and variation until the human species matures. The novel’s primary issue is whether Olivaw’s ends justify his means. Does the ancient Auroran robot really serve humanity’s greater good? Should Olivaw decide this for himself? Seldon seems unaware of Olivaw’s role in perpetuating brain fever and other dampeners. But Seldon would probably approve, considering his quarantining of the New Renaissance worlds when Seldon served as Imperial 1st Minister. Foundation and Chaos portrays the rise of mentalics (telepaths who can influence other’s thoughts) such as Wanda Seldon and Stettin Palver, who will form the Second Foundation. Twisted rogue mentalic Vara Liso even foreshadows the mutant Magnifico’s spectacular rise 310 years later. Powerful Public Safety Commissioner Linge Chen again plays a prominent role as the true Imperial power behind fatuous playboy Emperor Klayus. Reconstructed superrobot Dors Venabili reappears as well.Bear, Greg. The Second Foundation Trilogy: Foundation and Chaos. HarperTorch. February 1998. 

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Foundation’s Triumph starts with Hari Seldon who reviews his life and has to accept the fact that his “purpose” is completed. One day he meets a bureaucrat, Horis Antic, who explains his theory about the correlation of certain soils on planets and psychohistory. Seldon agrees to take a trip to some of the planets which fit Antic’s theory. Hari and Horis travel to Demarchia, where they rent a yacht. Parallel to Seldon’s story, Dors Venabili starts out on the planet Panucopia to meet Lodovik Trema, a robot whose Three Laws of Robotics have been erased. Lodovic gives her the head of R. Giskard Reventlov, an important robot who founded the Zeroth Law with R. Daneel Olivaw. She finds out that Giskard and Daneel never consulted a human while founding the Zeroth Law. Later Trema meets a faction of cyborgs and joins them. After Dors has become a rebel, she fights for the cyborgs as well. The third plot of the novel is on Eos. Daneel talks to his possible successor Zun Lurrin. All chapters with Olivaw as the main character are written in a different typeface. In Seldon's story, during the flight to the first planet the yacht is taken over by rebels, who are from the renaissance or chaos planet Ktlina. They show Seldon ancient spaceships with many data capsules from the human past. Robots take over the yacht and destroy the data capsules and the ancient ships with the permission of Seldon. During the flight back to Trantor, a rebel, Gornon Vlimt, turns out to be another robot from a faction of Calvinians, who want to send Hari into the future. At last all factions meet on Earth. The Calvinians are stopped by Daneel and Wanda Seldon. Old friends Seldon and Daneel meet one final time, to discuss philosophy. Despite the apparent eventual dominance of Galaxia, Seldon confides his belief that the second Galactic Empire will include both the two Foundations, following the Seldon Plan, and Galaxia. "Will there be an Encyclopedia Galactica a thousand years from now," asks Seldon, betting that if his belief is correct, there will be regularly updated editions of it. Since most Foundation novels use the Encyclopedia as a framing device for its chapters, this implies that Seldon correctly predicted the successful synthesis of the two Foundations and Galaxia.Brin, David. The Second Foundation Trilogy: Foundation's Triumph". Harper Prism. May 2000 

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The comic is structured as the narrative of a fictional soldier, Private First Class Edward Marks (but sometimes following other characters), as he experiences real events that occurred during the conflict. Each issue of the comic occurs one month after the previous issue, detailing events that occurred approximately 20 years prior to the publication date. The events depicted are sometimes famous ones, such as the Tet Offensive of 1968, and sometimes more personal ones, depicting the interaction between soldiers or between soldiers and the local populace of Vietnam, or between soldiers and their families, friends and others in the United States. Some of the stories are typical of those in war comics of any era, such as the interaction with a callous officer or a description of combat, while others are unique to Vietnam, such as the experience of soldiers on leave bearing the personal burden of animosity from civilians opposed to the war. Issue #8 introduced the character of Frank Verzyl, the Tunnel Rat, who appeared again briefly in #26. 

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Mary Elizabeth "Lola" Steppe is a 15-year-old girl who grew up in New York City and wants desperately to become a famous Broadway actress. She narrates the story. Much to her annoyance, she moves with her family to the suburbs of Dellwood, New Jersey, but she confidently tells the audience, "A legend is about to be born. That legend would be me." At school, Lola befriends an unpopular girl, Ella Gerard, who shares her love for the rock band Sidarthur. Lola idolizes the band's lead singer, Stu Wolff. She also meets Sam, a cute boy who takes a liking to her, and makes enemies with Carla Santini, the most popular girl in school. When Lola auditions for the school play, a modernized musical version of Pygmalion called Eliza Rocks, she is chosen over Carla to play Eliza, and Carla promises to make her life miserable. Lola also beats Carla on a dancing video game at an arcade, whereupon Carla reveals that she has tickets to the farewell concert of Sidarthur, which recently decided to dissolve. Afraid of being one-upped by Carla, Lola falsely claims that Ella and she have tickets too. She loses her chance to buy tickets and new clothes when her mother takes away her allowance, and the concert is sold out by the time she persuades Ella to pay for the tickets. However, Lola explains that they can buy tickets from a scalper, and gets Sam to sneak Eliza's dress out of the costume room for her to wear at the concert. On the night of the concert, Lola and Ella take a train to New York City, but Lola accidentally leaves the money for the tickets on the train, and her plan to sneak into the concert does not work. Lola and Ella finally give up and walk through the city to Stu's after-show party. When they arrive there, Stu stumbles drunkenly out of the building and passes out in an alley. The two girls take him to a diner to sober him up, but he gets in trouble, and they end up at a police station, where Lola gives her father's New York City address. At this point, Lola's dishonesty becomes a problem. When she met Ella, she tried to impress her by telling her a dramatic story about her father dying years earlier. Ella highly values honesty, so she becomes infuriated when she discovers that Lola's story was a lie. After Lola's father arrives, and they explain what happened, Stu gratefully takes them all back to the party, where Ella forgives Lola for lying (on the condition that she will never lie to her again), and the two girls see Carla, who sees them as well, and looks upset. Lola talks with Stu about his work, but is disappointed to discover that he is an alcoholic. Back at school, Carla humiliates Lola by denying that she saw Lola or Ella at the party and calling Lola a liar. None of the other students believes Lola's story about being arrested with Stu and leaving her necklace at his house. Afterward, Lola goes home, depressed, and refuses to perform in the play, but she is spurred on by Ella's encouragement and arrives backstage just in time to prevent Carla from taking over her part. As she is about to go on stage, her mother wishes her good luck and finally calls her by her nickname, Lola. The modernist interpretation of Pygmalion (Eliza Rocks) ensues. After a great performance that brings a standing ovation, the cast goes to an after-party at Carla's house, where Stu arrives to see Lola. Carla tries to save herself from humiliation by saying he is there to see her, but is proved wrong when Stu gives Lola her necklace in front of everyone. As Carla's lies become apparent, she backs away from the crowd on the verge of tears and falls into a fountain, greeted by everyone's laughter. In a conciliatory gesture, Lola helps her up, and Carla accepts defeat. After dancing with Stu, Lola dances with Sam, and they eventually share a kiss. 

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Isabel Walker (Kate Hudson) travels to Paris to visit her sister Roxy (Naomi Watts), a poet who lives with her husband, Frenchman Charles-Henri de Persand (Melvil Poupaud), and their young daughter, Gennie (Esmée Buchet-Deàk). Roxy is pregnant, but her husband has just walked out on her without explanation. Isabel discovers that he has a mistress, a Russian woman named Magda Tellman (Rona Hartner), whom he intends to marry after securing a divorce from Roxy. Roxy refuses to divorce him. Roxy is also in possession of a painting of Saint Ursula by Georges de La Tour; the painting belongs to the Walker family, but due to her marriage to Charles- Henri and French community property laws, the ownership is disputed between the two families. The Louvre deems the painting worthless and concludes that it is not a real La Tour. However, the J. Paul Getty Museum takes an interest in the painting and its curator believes that the painting was done by La Tour himself. Paris-based American author Olivia Pace (Glenn Close), a friend of Roxy's, offers Isabel a job. Isabel also meets Yves (Romain Duris), Olivia's protégé, and they begin dating. The sisters visit Charles-Henri's family's country home for Sunday brunch, where Isabel meets Charles-Henri's mother Suzanne (Leslie Caron), and her handsome middle-aged brother-in-law, Edgar (Thierry Lhermitte). Isabel is attracted to the older, wealthy and married Edgar and they begin an affair, although Isabel continues to string Yves along. Edgar begins to send Isabel various gifts, including an expensive red Kelly bag by Hermès, which Isabel carries with her at all times. During a visit to Isabel, Suzanne discovers the Kelly bag, after which she realizes that Edgar is having an affair with Isabel. Charles-Henri maintains a blasé attitude about his infidelity and insists on a divorce. He also hopes to benefit from the French community property laws in the divorce, especially with regard to the La Tour painting. His mistress Magda is married to a man named Tellman (Matthew Modine), who begins to stalk and harass Isabel and Roxy, believing the latter to be responsible for his wife's desertion. Charles-Henri's cruelty and insensitivity take their toll on Roxy, and she attempts suicide in late pregnancy. She survives and is supported by Isabel and her lawyer Bertram. Roxy and Isabel's family arrive from the US to support the sisters, and to also discuss the divorce proceedings and the ownership of the La Tour painting. Things are further complicated when Edgar's wife, Amélie (Marie-Christine Adam), discovers the affair through Suzanne. Following a brunch with both families, Suzanne and Amélie privately inform Isabel's mother about the affair; she later confronts Isabel with this information. During an outing, Magda and Charles-Henri tease Tellman with their new relationship. Later, they are both murdered by Tellman in a crime of passion, with Charles- Henri's body being found in Roxy's apartment complex. Roxy and Bertram come upon the scene and the stress causes her to go into labor. Tellman then follows Isabel and her family on an outing to the Eiffel Tower, where he corners them and pulls a gun, demanding an opportunity to explain to Roxy why he killed her husband. After some persuasion, the distraught Tellman releases the gun to Isabel, who puts it into the Kelly bag and throws it off the Eiffel Tower. Edgar, persuaded by his socially conscious family's concern, and tiring of his young lover, casually ends his affair with Isabel with a gift of Hermès scarf and a lunch. Afterwards, Isabel begins a real relationship with Yves. After Roxy's baby is born, she marries Bertram. The family attends an art auction where the La Tour painting sells to The Getty for 4.5 million Euros. Because its ownership is no longer disputed due to Charles-Henri's death, the money goes to the Walker family, who then go on to establish the "Fondation Sainte Ursule" (The Saint Ursula Foundation). 

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Alex Sheldon (Luke Wilson) finds himself in a tricky situation. Locked in his creative process, he is entrapped in a disastrous economic situation: he is ruined, and he must repay a US$100,000 debt to the Cuban mafia. He is given a 30-day ultimatum to repay the money he owes them or they will kill him. And the only solution to this big problem is to finish his novel. Or rather, to start it, since he has not written one single line. But he has an idea for the story: A comedy about "the powerlessness of being in love, how love devours the insides of a person like a deadly virus". He decides to hire the services of Emma Dinsmore (Kate Hudson), a stubborn stenographer, just for her help to finish the novel, so he can receive money from the publisher in order to pay his debts. So finally comes the novel: It tells the story of Adam Shipley (Luke Wilson), a writer who has been hired to tutor the children of an attractive French woman (Sophie Marceau), who is going through bad economic times, and to whom Adam falls in love, despite the failed temptations of the au pair. As Alex dictates his novel to Emma, the movie cuts away to scenes from the novel, where Adam (Wilson) interacts with a series of nannies (all played by Hudson), and falls for the last one. But on the other hand, Emma begins to question the ideas of Alex Sheldon, while starting to affect his life as well as his work. They soon fall for each other. Alas, after finishing the book, Emma discovers that the French woman of the history was based on a real person, a former girlfriend of Alex who just broke up with her latest boyfriend and now eats with Alex in a bar to invite him to a dance. Alex soon realizes that the person he really wants to be with is Emma. After the book was done and handed it to his publisher. He already paid off his debt. After much prodding, he gets to meet with her to write the end of the book in which Alex has changed and shows Emma he wants her to be an important part of his life. Emma was reluctant at first, but decided to finish the better ending. She loved it and Alex profess his love for her and she accepted. 

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This series deals with a new type of robots who do not have the Three Laws of Robotics. The Three Laws are integral to the functioning of a positronic brain, but these robots have gravitonic brains, into which it is possible to build any set of laws. For example, some gravitonic robots have already been built with the New Laws of Robotics which are designed to make them partners rather than slaves to humanity. Simcor Beddle's Ironhead movement stages a hit-and-run attack on a plantation near Settlertown, and they crop up once or twice more as the story progresses. The Ironheads nearly successfully start a riot when Beddle castigates Dr. Leving after one of her lectures on the nature of robots and how they affect human beings. It is her thesis that the superabundance of robotic labor has caused humans to become indolent and nearly incompetent at accomplishing even trivial tasks. She also claims that robots themselves do not qualify as a very good successor to humanity given that their sole purpose is to serve humans. It is revealed that some members of Leving Labs have both personal and professional secrets to hide: Gubber Anshaw is romantically involved with Tonya Welton, while Jomaine Terach is aware of the creation of Caliban and the fact that he lacked the Three Laws of Robotics. Sheriff Kresh is aided in this respect when Caliban encounters a robot at a shipping depot and recounts his entire life history (about five days' worth). While the robot nearly seizes in brainlock and ends up precipitating a minor catastrophe by hyperwaving for help, the story the robot tells confirms what Kresh later uses to get the truth out of Terach. Caliban escapes the City of Hades (the capital of Inferno), but is located by both Dr. Leving and Sheriff Kresh. Kresh uses the occasion to finger the true culprit in the assault on Leving, who turns out to have been Ariel, Tonya Welton's personal robot. She had switched serial numbers with another robot after a test had been run on her brain and comparing it to a normal Three-Law robotic brain. She, like Caliban, had been programmed without the Laws of Robotics, but had been purely a stationary unit. In switching the serial numbers, Ariel was able to have a set of robotic legs placed on her, allowing her to masquerade as a "normal" robot. Kresh rightly believes that Ariel presents far too great of a danger to human beings, and shoots her. However, he is convinced that Caliban does not present the same danger based on clues about his behavior, and allows him to remain functional. Caliban then goes with Dr. Leving to the island of Purgatory. Category:1993 novels Category:Foundation universe books Category:American science fiction novels Category:Novels by Roger MacBride Allen Category:Ace Books books 

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Utopia takes place five years into the reign of Alvar Kresh as the governor of Inferno, who is now married to roboticist Fredda Leving. The re-terraforming effort is doing fairly well, but many believe it is still doomed to failure. The plot centers around a plan created by an Infernal named Davlo Lentrall to use a comet, named comet Grieg after the old governor, to dig a channel creating a northern sea. Norlan Fiyle, who has been working as an intelligence broker, found out about this plan early and informed the Settlers, the Ironheads, and the New Law robots of the plan. The issue is complicated by the fact that the plan calls for the comet to land essentially on top of the new law robot city of Valhalla. Tonya Welton, the leader of the settlers on Inferno, is upset by this plan having seen similar plans fail in the past. She orders her security people to grab Davlo and destroy his work. Although they were successful in destroying his data, the attempt to capture Davlo himself failed due to quick thinking on the part of Commander Justen Devray, now the head of the Combined Inferno Police, and the help of Davlo's robot Kaelor. Unfortunately, the location of comet Grieg is lost. Davlo and Fredda Leving attempt to extract this information from Kaelor's memory, but he ends up killing himself rather than release the information which might cause harm to humans. Davlo's guilt over the death of his robot eventually leads him to oppose the comet plan altogether. Eventually the information is retrieved when Jadelo Gildern, who had previously stolen the data from Davlo's office, provides Governor Kresh with the missing data. While trying to decide whether to implement the comet plan, Kresh pays a visit to the terraforming control system. The system consists of a robotic unit, called Unit Dee, working with a non-sentient Settler unit, Unit Dum, they are collectively referred to as the Twins. We learn that in order to avoid First Law conflicts, Unit Dee is being lied to and told that the entire terraforming project is really an elaborate simulation and that no actual human beings are involved. Significant care must be taken to ensure that Dee does not learn the truth. Dee confirms that Davlo's plan, if successful, stands a good chance of repairing Inferno's ecology. The comet project is given the go-ahead and work commences to evacuate the areas near the impact site. As the impact approaches, Simcor Beddle and Jadelo Gildern develop a plan to use a burrowing bomb, normally used for geological surveys, to destroy Valhalla before the new law robots have time to finish evacuating. On the way there though, Simcor's aircar is attacked, his robots killed, and a demand, to stop the comet and deliver money into a bank account or Beddle will die, is written on the door. Kresh's robot Donald, who heard of this incident, is forced by the First Law to act. He contacts robots in the area, who begin performing a search, and tells Dee that she is being lied to about the simulation. This causes Dee to shut down, leaving the people on the ground with few options for the final steering of the comet. Meanwhile, Devray tries to find Beddle. He tries putting money in the account mentioned in the demand and finds that it is automatically transferred to one of Gildern's accounts. Devray brings in Gildern, and also questions Fiyle, from whom he learns about Beddle's plan to destroy the New Law robots. Caliban turns himself in preemptively. The three talk while in jail, and Caliban manages to deduce what has happened to Beddle and rushes off to save him. While flying there, Caliban sends out a hyperwave message to tell the other robots that are searching to go back and that the situation is under control. Caliban goes to Valhalla, where he finds several New Law robots dead and Prospero holding Beddle prisoner, with a setup where if Beddle tries to leave, he will set off the bomb. Prospero was attempting to kill Beddle while avoiding the New First Law. Caliban is left with a choice of whom to let live, and kills Prospero, saving Beddle shortly before the comet hits. In the meantime, Dee finally wakes up and asks to talk to Kresh. She verifies that she was in fact being lied to. She asks Kresh if he believes Caliban's message about saving Beddle. When Kresh says that he does believe it, Dee decides that she can manage the comet without First Law conflict. Category:Foundation universe books Category:1996 novels Category:American science fiction novels Category:Novels by Roger MacBride Allen 

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The few remaining members of the only intelligent non-human alien race the Galactic Empire has discovered have been removed from their dying planet and transferred to the much more pleasant Cepheus-18 (hence their name, "Cepheids"). The planet is a combination of zoo, laboratory, and reservation for the creatures. The scientists that study the Cepheids differ on whether to treat them as sentient beings or as animals, but agree that the aliens are in danger of extinction as they have ceased to reproduce. While the administrator already suspects that this is due to a certain ennui, the Cepheids' leader later admits personally that while their race would likely have soon died out on its dangerous home world as their science only covered their biological needs; they have nothing to live for in a galaxy completely ruled by humans who provide for all their physical needs, and they are prohibited from leaving the Empire. The civilian supervisor, a career administrator, attempts to help the creatures using his thorough knowledge of the Imperial bureaucracy. By carefully orchestrating a leak of a report that he encouraged a subordinate to make, he causes the bureaucracy to make the reproduction problem a priority. Then, he arranges for the Cepheids to receive pilot training under the guise of providing them with a challenge, and finally by using a crude form of telepathy during an interview with their leader, he hints to the leader to express interest in a bulky object so that he can manipulate the bureaucracy into arranging for a fleet of hundreds of spaceships to deliver a large quantity of these to the Cepheids. His plan works; the Cepheids commandeer the ships leaving the humans off guard without any nearby ships with which to mount a pursuit, and it is hinted that they have left for the Magellanic Clouds to find a new world of their own. The supervisor has protected himself from any blame for the escape by his ingenious bureaucratic maneuvers, and is placed on leave pending reassignment. 

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As in many of Asimov's Robot stories, conflicts in the application of the Three Laws of Robotics is the subject of the plot. In contrast to the majority of such stories, in which the lexical ambiguities of the Laws are employed to fashion a dilemma, the robot featured in "Runaround" is actually following the Laws as they were intended. The plot revolves around the Three Laws of Robotics: # A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. # A robot must obey the orders by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. # A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. The robot finds it impossible to obey both the Second Law and the Third Law at the same time, and this freezes it in a loop of repetitive behavior. 

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Powell and Donovan are assigned to a space station which supplies energy via microwave beams to the planets. The robots that control the energy beams are in turn co- ordinated by QT-1, known to Powell and Donovan as Cutie, an advanced model with highly developed reasoning ability. Using these abilities, Cutie decides that space, stars and the planets beyond the station don't really exist, and that the humans that visit the station are unimportant, short-lived and expendable. QT-1 makes the lesser robots disciples of a new religion, which considers the power source of the ship to be "Master." QT-1 teaches them to bow down to the "Master" and intone, "There is no master but Master, and QT-1 is His prophet." Disregarding human commands as inferior, QT-1 asserts "I myself, exist, because I think -". The sardonic response of the humans is, "Oh, Jupiter, a robot Descartes!" The humans initially attempt to reason with QT-1, until they realize that they can't convince it otherwise. Their attempts to remove Cutie physically also fail, as the other robots have become disciples and refuse to obey human orders. The situation seems desperate, as a solar storm is expected, potentially deflecting the energy beam, incinerating populated areas. When the storm hits, Powell and Donovan are amazed to find that the beam operates perfectly. Cutie, however, does not believe they did anything other than maintain meter readings at optimum, according to the commands of The Master. As far as Cutie and the rest of the robots are concerned, solar storms and planets are non-existent. The two thus come to the realization that, although the robots themselves were consciously unaware of doing so, they had been following the First and Second Laws all along. Cutie knew, on some level, that it would be better suited to operating the controls than Powell or Donavan, so, lest it endanger humans and break the First Law by obeying their orders, it subconsciously orchestrated a scenario where it would be in control of the beam. Powell and Donovan realize that there is no need to do anything for the rest of their tour of duty. Cutie's religion cannot be eliminated, but since the robot performs its job just as well, it is moot, even if Cutie continues to perform his duties for a perceived deity, rather than for the benefit of the humans. The humans begin to consider how they might spread the notion to other groups of robots which need to work as teams. 

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The recurring team of Powell and Donovan are testing a new model of robot on an asteroid mining station. This DV-5 (Dave) has six subsidiary robots, described as "fingers", which it controls via positronic fields, a means of transmission not yet fully understood by roboticists. When the humans are not in contact, the robot stops producing ore. It cannot recall the time periods when it stops mining, and states that it finds this just as puzzling as the humans do. Powell and Donovan secretly observe the robot without its knowledge. It starts performing strange marches and dances with its subsidiaries whenever something unexpected happens - an early example of a Heisenbug (software problem). To learn more, the humans try to create an emergency situation around the robot in order to observe the precise moment of malfunction, but accidentally trap themselves in a cave-in. They eventually figure that the main robot has too many subsidiaries. The "fingers" function independently until there is a serious need of decisiveness, when the main brain has to assume 6-way-control of all "fingers", which requires an excess of initiative and causes overload. When the humans were watching, their presence reduced the initiative placed on the robot's mind, and it would not break down. To get themselves rescued, the humans shoot and destroy one of the subsidiaries. The main robotic brain can cope with five-way control, so the robots stop dancing and the First Law takes over. Powell anthropomorphises the error as the robot twiddling its "fingers" whenever it becomes overwhelmed by its job. This is another example of Asimov's writing of robopsychology - personified by Susan Calvin - as running parallel to human psychology. At this point in I, Robot, the reader has already seen hysteria and religious mania. 

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Through a fault in manufacturing, a robot, RB-34 (also known as Herbie), is created that possesses telepathic abilities. While the roboticists at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men investigate how this occurred, the robot tells them what other people are thinking. But the First Law still applies to this robot, and so it deliberately lies when necessary to avoid hurting their feelings and to make people happy, especially in terms of romance. However, by lying, it is hurting them anyway. When it is confronted with this fact by Susan Calvin (to whom it falsely claimed her coworker was infatuated with her – a particularly painful lie), the robot experiences an insoluble logical conflict and becomes catatonic. 

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At Hyper Base, a military research station on an asteroid, scientists are working to develop the hyperspace drive - a theme that is explored and developed in several of Asimov's stories and mentioned in the Empire and Foundation books. One of the researchers, Gerald Black, loses his temper, swears at an NS-2 (Nestor) robot and tells the robot to get lost. Obeying the order literally, it hides itself. It is then up to US Robots' Chief Robopsychologist Dr. Susan Calvin, and Mathematical Director Peter Bogert, to find it. They even know exactly where it is: in a room with 62 other physically identical robots. But this particular robot is different. As earlier models on the station had attempted to "rescue" humans from a type of radiation that humans could actually stay in for a while, but would destroy a robot almost immediately, it (and all other NS series robots produced for the station) has had its First Law of Robotics modified to "no robot may injure a human being"; the normal "or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm" has been omitted. Therefore, it could stand by and allow a human to be hurt, as long as it plays no active part in it. In Little Lost Robot, the Frankenstein complex is again addressed. The robot must be found because people are still afraid of robots, and if they learned that one had been built with a different First Law, there would be an outcry, even though the robot is still incapable of directly harming a human. However, Dr. Calvin adds further urgency by postulating a situation whereby the altered law could allow the robot to harm or even kill a person. The robot could drop a weight on a human below that it knew it could catch before it injured the potential victim. Upon releasing the weight however, its altered programming would allow it to simply let the weight drop, since it would have played no further active part in the resulting injury. After interviewing every robot separately and going down several blind alleys, Dr. Calvin worries desperately that the robot may be gaining a superiority complex that might allow it to directly hurt a human. Dr. Calvin finds a way to trick the robot into revealing itself: She puts herself in danger but not before ensuring the robots understand that if there is any radiation between herself and the robots, they would be unable to save her even if they tried. Once the test is run, only the Nestor robot they were looking for makes a move to save her, because it detected harmless infrared rays rather than gamma rays. All of the other robots could not identify what type of radiation was being used because it wasn't part of their design, whereas the modified NS-2 had been through training at Hyper Base and had learned how to detect the difference in radiation types. The robot, finding himself discovered, then explains that the only way to prove itself better than a human is by never being found, and it tries to attack Dr. Calvin so that she cannot reveal she found the robot. Black and Bogert apply gamma rays on the robot, destroying it before it can harm her. 

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Many research organizations are working to develop the hyperspatial drive. The company U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., is approached by its biggest competitor that has plans for a working hyperspace engine that allows humans to survive the jump (a theme which would be further developed in future Asimov stories). But the staff of U.S. Robots is wary, because, in performing the calculations, their rival's (non-positronic) supercomputer has destroyed itself. The U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men company finds a way to feed the information to its own positronic computer known as The Brain (which is not a robot in the strictest sense of the word, since it doesn't move, although it does obey the Three Laws of Robotics), without the same thing happening. The Brain then directs the building of a hyperspace ship. Powell and Donovan board the spaceship, and the spaceship takes off without them being initially aware of it. They also find that The Brain has become a practical joker: it hasn't built any manual controls for the ship, no showers or beds, either, and it only provides tinned beans and milk for the crew to survive on. Shortly after their journey begins, and after many strange visions by the crew, the ship does safely return to Hyper Base after two hyperspace jumps. Dr. Susan Calvin has, by this time, discovered what has happened: any hyperspace jump causes the crew of the ship to cease existing for a brief moment, effectively dying, which is a violation of the First Law of Robotics (albeit a temporary one); the only reason the artificial intelligence of The Brain survives is because Susan reduced the importance of the potential deaths, and descending into irrational, childish behavior as a means of coping, allowing it to find a means for ensuring the survival of the crew. 

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Stephen Byerley is severely injured in a car accident. After a slow recovery he becomes a successful district attorney, and runs for mayor of a major American city. His opponent Francis Quinn's political machine claims that the real Stephen Byerley was permanently disfigured and crippled by the accident. The Byerley who appears in public is a humanoid robot, Quinn says, created by the real Byerley who is now the robot's mysterious unseen "teacher", now away doing unspecified scientific work. Most voters do not believe Quinn but if he is correct Byerley's campaign will end, as only humans can legally run for office. Quinn approaches U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men corporation, the world's only supplier of positronic robot brains, for proof that Byerley must be a robot. No one has ever seen Byerley eat or sleep, Quinn reports. All attempts to prove or disprove Byerley's humanity fail, but Quinn's smear campaign slowly persuades voters until it becomes the only issue in the campaign. Alfred Lanning and Dr. Susan Calvin, the Chief Robopsychologist of U.S. Robots, visit Byerley. She offers him an apple; Byerley takes a bite, but he may have been designed with a stomach. Quinn attempts to take clandestine X-ray photographs, but Byerley wears a device which fogs the camera; he says that he is upholding his civil rights, as he would do for others if he is elected. His opponents claim that as a robot he has no civil rights, but Byerley replies that they must first prove that he is a robot before they can deny his rights as a human, including his right not to submit to physical examination. Calvin observes that if Byerley is a robot, he must obey the Three Laws of Robotics. Were he to violate one of the Laws he would clearly be a human, since no robot can contradict its basic programming. The district attorney never seeks the death penalty and boasts that he has never prosecuted an innocent man, but if he obeys the Laws it still does not prove that Byerley is a robot, since the Laws are based on human morality; "He may simply be a very good man", Calvin says. To prove himself to be a human being, Byerley must demonstrate that he can harm a human, which would violate the First Law. The local election is discussed around the world and Byerley becomes famous. During a globally broadcast speech to a hostile audience, a heckler climbs onto the stage and challenges Byerley to hit him in the face. Millions watch the candidate punch the heckler in the face. Calvin tells the press that Byerley is human. With the expert's verdict disproving Quinn's claim, Byerley wins the election. Calvin again visits Byerley. The mayor-elect confesses that his campaign spread the rumor that Byerley had never and could not hit a man, to provoke someone to challenge him. The robopsychologist says that she regrets that he is human, because a robot would make an ideal ruler, one incapable of cruelty or injustice. Calvin notes that a robot may avoid breaking the First Law if the "man" who is harmed is not a man, but another humanoid robot, implying that the heckler whom Byerley punched may have been a robot. In the binding text of I, Robot Calvin notes that Byerley had his body atomized upon death, destroying any evidence, but she personally believed that he was a robot. Calvin promises to vote for Byerley when he runs for higher office. By Asimov's "The Evitable Conflict", Byerley is head of the planetary government. 

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Following on from the previous story 'Evidence,' in the year 2052, Stephen Byerley has been elected World Co-ordinator for a second term. Earth is divided into four geographical regions, each with a powerful supercomputer known as a Machine managing its economy. Byerley is concerned as the Machines have recently made some errors leading to economic inefficiency. Consulting with the four regional Vice Co-ordinators, he finds that several prominent individuals and companies associated with the anti-Machine "Society for Humanity" have been damaged by the Machines' apparent mistakes. Byerley believes that the Society is attempting to undermine the Machines by disobeying their instructions, with the goal of retaking power as humans, and proposes to have the movement suppressed. Susan Calvin tells him that this will not work, contending that the errors are in fact deliberate acts by the Machines. The Machines recognize their own necessity to humanity's continued peace and prosperity, and have thus inflicted a small amount of harm on selected individuals in order to protect themselves and continue guiding humanity's future. They keep their intent a secret to avoid anger and resistance by humans. Calvin concludes that the Machines have generalized the First Law to mean "No machine may harm humanity; or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm." (This is similar to the Zeroth Law which Asimov developed in later novels.) In effect, the Machines have decided that the only way to follow the First Law is to take control of humanity, which is one of the events that the three Laws are supposed to prevent. Asimov returned to this theme in The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn, in which the controlling influence is not a small conspiracy of Machines but instead the aggregate influence of many robots, each individually tasked to prevent harm. 

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The novel's narrative is divided into three distinct strands. One is centred on Urania Cabral, a fictional Dominican character; another deals with the conspirators involved in Trujillo's assassination; and the third focuses on Trujillo himself. The novel alternates between these storylines, while jumping back and forth from 1961 to 1996, with frequent flashbacks to periods earlier in Trujillo's regime. The Feast of the Goat begins with the return of Urania to her hometown of Santo Domingo, a city which had been renamed Ciudad Trujillo during Trujillo's time in power. This storyline is largely introspective, dealing with Urania's memories and her inner turmoil over the events preceding her departure from the Dominican Republic thirty-five years earlier. Urania escaped the crumbling Trujillo regime in 1961 by claiming she planned to study under a tutelage of nuns in Michigan. In the following decades, she becomes a prominent and successful New York lawyer. She finally returns to the Dominican Republic in 1996, on a whim, before finding herself compelled to confront her father and elements of her past she has long ignored. As Urania speaks to her ailing father, Agustin Cabral, she recalls more and more of the anger and disgust that led to her thirty-five years of silence. Urania retells her father's descent into political disgrace, while revealing the betrayal that forms a crux between both Urania's storyline and that of Trujillo himself. The second and third storylines are set in 1961, in the weeks prior to and following Trujillo's assassination on May 30. Each assassin has his own background story, explaining his motivation for their involvement in the assassination plot. Each has been wronged by Trujillo and his regime, by torture and brutality, or through assaults on their pride, religious faith, morality, and loved ones. Vargas Llosa weaves the tale of the men as memories recalled on the night of Trujillo's death, as the conspirators lie in wait for "The Goat". Interconnected with these stories are the actions of other famous Trujillistas of the time: Joaquín Balaguer, the puppet president; Johnny Abbes García, the merciless head of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM); and various others --some real, some composites of historical figures, and some purely fictional. The third storyline is concerned with the thoughts and motives of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina himself. The chapters concerning The Goat recall the major events of his time, including the slaughter of thousands of Dominican Haitians in 1937. They also deal with the Dominican Republic's tense international relationships during the Cold War, especially with the United States under the presidency of John F. Kennedy and Cuba under Castro. Vargas Llosa also speculates upon Trujillo's innermost thoughts and paints a picture of a man whose physical body is slowly failing him. Trujillo is tormented by both his incontinence and impotence. Eventually, his storyline intersects with Urania's narrative when it's revealed that Urania was sexually assaulted by Trujillo. He is unable to achieve an erection with Urania and, in frustration, rapes her with his bare hands. This event is the core of Urania's shame and hatred towards her own father. In addition, it's the cause of Trujillo's repeated anger over the "anemic little bitch" who witnessed his impotence and emotion, as well as the reason he's en route to sleep with another girl on the night of his assassination. In the novel's final chapters, the three storylines intersect with increasing frequency. The tone of these chapters is especially dark as they deal primarily with the horrific torture and death of the assassins at the hands of government agents, the failure of the coup, the rape of Urania, and the concessions made to Trujillo's most vicious supporters allowing them to enact their horrific revenge on the conspirators and escape the country. The book ends as Urania prepares to return home, determined this time to keep in touch with her family back on the island. 

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Earth faces a confrontation with its colonies, the "Outer Worlds." A historian looks back and sees the problem beginning a century and a half earlier, when Aurora got permission to "introduce positronic robots into their community life." No date is given, but fifty years before the story starts, the Outer Worlds established an immigration quota against incoming Terran citizens. The balance of power then tipped. Now war appears likely, and there are rumors that Earth has developed an unknown weapon, code-named the "Pacific Project." On Aurora, there is also concern, but the Aurorans decide that the threat cannot be serious. They use authoritarian methods to suppress Ion Mereanu and his Conservatives, who wish to help Earth. They then call a gathering on Hesperus, one of the Outer Worlds, to unite them against Earth. There is some rivalry from two other planets, Rhea and Tethys. "All three planets were identically racist, identically exclusivist. Their views on Earth were similar, and completely compatible... But Aurora was the oldest of the Outer Worlds, the most advanced, the strongest militarily... Rhea and Tethys served as a focal point for those who did not recognize Auroran leadership." But Earth unexpectedly sends a threatening message to all of the worlds, uniting them against Earth. War follows (later termed the "Three-Week War" by historians), and Earth swiftly loses. Trade is ended—the Outer Worlds have no need of Earth's exports, which are mostly agricultural. Earthmen are not allowed to journey beyond the Solar System. The war was planned in the expectation of defeat—that was what the "Pacific Project" was all about. This is in part to force Earth to make necessary reforms including the use of robots, hydroponic agriculture, and population control. But the Outer Worlds will also weaken and split, because their worlds are biologically ill-suited to long-term human habitation. Several consequences for Earth are predicted from the entire conflict: 

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Three months after the events of The Eyre Affair, Thursday Next is happily married to Landen Parke-Laine and working as a literary detective out of Swindon. One day, Thursday meets her father, a renegade ChronoGuard, who informs her that the world's going to end in a flood of an unknown pink chemical. This is a result of one of her uncle Mycroft's inventions going out of control. Mycroft has destroyed his Prose Portal after the events of The Eyre Affair and retired, leaving the invention business in the hands of his two well-meaning but inept sons, Orville and Wilbur. Thursday is sent with her partner, Bowden Cable, to the mansion of Lord Volescamper, a major supporter of the front-runner in the up-coming election for President. In his extensive library, they discover an original manuscript of Shakespeare's lost play Cardenio. Tests done at the station determine its authenticity, and it seems to have appeared just in time to help its discoverer, Yorrick Kaine, to win the election (thanks to the "Shakespeare vote"). When he releases the play to the general public, victory is all but guaranteed. Thursday had marooned Jack Schitt in Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven at the end of The Eyre Affair, and his employer, The Goliath Corporation, a Big Brother-like agency which is the de facto ruler of England, wants him back. They hire a ChronoGuard agent named Lavoisier to eradicate Thursday's husband Landen from the time line, as a hostage to blackmail Thursday into retrieving Schitt. Landen vanishes, and only Thursday remembers him. But she also has physical proof—she's pregnant with their child. Without Mycroft's Prose Portal, however, she'll have to learn a new way to travel between books. During one of her dreams, she encounters Landen in her memory, who spurs her to travel to Osaka to meet Mrs. Nakajima, a woman who's learned how to travel through books. Mrs Nakajima introduces her to bookjumping, the method by which one enters the fictional world without the Prose Portal: those with an inherent talent for it can literally read themselves into the world of fiction and Thursday does so. It turns out that there is a police force within literature (both fiction and non-fiction), Jurisfiction, which employs both fictional characters and real people ranging from the Cheshire cat and the Red Queen to Ambrose Bierce and Voltaire, and ensures that literature continues in an orderly fashion. Next herself is apprenticed as a rookie Jurisfiction agent to Miss Havisham, the abandoned bride from Dickens' novel Great Expectations. Thursday is, however, in some legal trouble in the literary world for having changed the ending of Jane Eyre, in The Eyre Affair. After a preliminary hearing in the Byzantine world of Kafka's The Trial and saving Abel Magwitch from drowning before the beginning of Great Expectations, Havisham and Thursday part ways and the latter character enters "The Raven" and retrieves Jack Schitt. But Goliath have no intention of keeping their word, and they trap Thursday in a Corporation warehouse without any reading material with which she can read herself out. Miss Havisham finds her there when it's discovered that the copy of Cardenio which Thursday found in the real world was stolen from the Great Library (a building where copies of every book ever written or conceived of are kept) by another literary character. Miss Havisham uses one of Thursday's clothing labels to read the pair (eventually and with great effort) back to the Great Library. Guided through her dreams and memories by Landen, Thursday finds the event that caused the world-ending accident—or rather, the person: Aornis Hades, Acheron Hades' sister who wants revenge on Thursday for Acheron's death in The Eyre Affair. Aornis can edit people's memories so they don't remember her presence, which is why Thursday needed help from Landen to find Aornis in her own memory. Cardenio is retrieved but Aornis escapes and now Goliath, the ChronoGuard, and SpecOps all seek to apprehend Thursday on Goliath's contrived charge of stealing corporate secrets. At the book's end, Aornis pressures Thursday to kill herself so that Aornis will prevent the world from turning into Dream Topping. Thursday's father takes her place in the nick of time and sacrifices himself as Mycroft's Dream Topping (see dream whip) making machine breaks down and begins producing the goo continuously; he takes all the Dream Topping to the dawn of Earth, where it—and he—will supply the organic nutrients needed to create life. Afterwards, Thursday returns home and finds her father there. She is confused until she realizes that, being a time traveller, he will sacrifice himself much later in his future, even though it was just a little while ago in hers. Now that she is wanted by Goliath, the ChronoGuard, and Aornis, her father offers to place her in an alternate reality for a while (it is ironically implied that this is our reality) while she gives birth to Landen's baby. Refusing her father's offer, Thursday travels to a book in the Well of Lost Plots—a subdivision of the Great Library that contains unpublished and unfinished works—in order to take a year's maternity leave with her memory of Landen. She establishes a home in a moored flying boat (a Short Sunderland), after trading places with the plucky sidekick sergeant of a police procedural mystery; it is implied that this is Sergeant Mary Mary, from one of Fforde's other works, The Big Over Easy. 

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Lieutenant Thomas Glahn, a hunter and ex-military man, lives alone in a hut in the forest with his faithful dog Aesop. Upon meeting Edvarda, the daughter of a merchant in a nearby town, they are both strongly attracted to each other, but neither understands the other's love. Overwhelmed by the society of people where Edvarda lives, Glahn has a series of tragedies befall him before he leaves forever. 

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; Chapter 1 : The story starts with a sword fight, in the empire of Noregolia between the Ecordian barbarian Grignr and some mercenaries who are pursuing him. Grignr is on his way to Gorzom in search of wenches and plunder. ; Chapter 2 : Grignr arrives in Gorzom and goes to a tavern, where he picks up a local wench (with a "lithe, opaque nose"). A drunken guard challenges him over the woman; he kills the guard, but is arrested by the man's companions and brought before the local prince, who (on the advice of his advisor) condemns him to a life of forced labour in the mines. Enraged, Grignr kills the prince's advisor, Agafnd, and is about to kill the prince, when he is knocked unconscious. This chapter contains the first of several occasions when the word slut is applied to a man, presumably as an insult. ; Chapter 3 : Grignr awakens in a dark, dismal cell. He sits despondently, thinking of his homeland. ; Chapter 3½ : A scene of a pagan ritual involving a group of shamans (spelled "shamen"), a young woman to be sacrificed and a grotesque jade idol with one eye: a "many fauceted scarlet emerald", the Eye of Argon. ; Chapter 4 : Losing track of time, Grignr sits bored and anguished in his cell. A large rat attacks him and he decapitates it. It then inspires him with a plan, involving the corpse of the rat, which he dismembers. ; Chapter 5 : The pagan ritual proceeds, with a priest ordering the young woman up to the altar. When she fails to proceed, he attempts to grope her. She vomits onto the priest, who chokes her. She disables him with a hard kick between the testicles, but the other shamans grab and molest her. ; Chapter 6 : Grignr is taken from his cell by two soldiers. He takes the rat pelvis he has fashioned into a dagger and slits one soldier's throat. He then strangles the second and takes his clothes, torch and axe. He wanders the catacombs for a time, finding a storeroom, and narrowly avoids being killed by a booby-trap. Below this room he finds the palace mausoleum. He resets the booby-trap in case he is being pursued. :He hears a scream apparently coming from a sarcophagus. He opens it to find the scream is coming from below. He opens a trap door to see the pagan ritual. Enraged upon seeing a shaman about to sacrifice the young woman, Grignr ploughs into the group of shamans with the axe and takes the Eye. The young woman, Carthena, turns out to be the tavern wench. They depart. ; Chapter 7 : One priest, who had been suffering an epileptic seizure during Grignr's attack, recovers. Maddened by what he sees, he draws a scimitar and follows Grignr and Carthena through the trap door in the ceiling. ; Chapter 7½ : The priest strikes at Grignr but he triggers, and is killed by, the reset booby- trap before his sword can connect. Carthena tells Grignr of the prince, Agaphim, who had condemned him to the mines. They encounter Agaphim and kill him, as well as his advisor Agafnd (for the second time). :They emerge into the sunlight. Grignr pulls the Eye of Argon out of his pouch to admire. The jewel melts and turns into a writhing blob with a leechlike mouth. The blob attacks him and begins sucking his blood. Carthena faints. Grignr, beginning to lose consciousness, grabs a torch and thrusts it into the blob's mouth. Traditional photocopied and Internet versions end at this point, incomplete since page 49 of the fanzine had been lost. The ending was rediscovered in 2004 and published in The New York Review of Science Fiction #198, February 2005. The authenticity of this "lost ending" is still disputed by many. ; The Lost Ending (Remainder of Ch. 7½) : The blob explodes into a thousand pieces, leaving nothing behind except "a dark red blotch upon the face of the earth, blotching things up." Grignr and the still-unconscious Carthena ride off into the distance. 

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Goro Hanada, the Japanese underworld's third-ranked hitman, and his wife, Mami, fly into Tokyo and are met by Kasuga, a formerly ranked hitman turned taxi driver. Kasuga petitions Hanada to assist him in breaking back into the profession. Hanada agrees and the three go to a club owned by the yakuza boss Michihiko Yabuhara. The two men are hired to escort a client from Sagami Beach to Nagano. After the meeting, Yabuhara covertly seduces Hanada's wife. Hanada and Kasuga pick up a car designated for the job which unexpectedly has a corpse in the back seat. They dispose of the body, then meet the client and proceed towards their destination. En route Hanada spots an ambush. He dispatches a number of gunmen while Kasuga panics and flails about in hysterics. Foaming at the mouth, Kasuga charges an ambusher, Koh, the fourth-ranked hitman, and they kill each other. Hanada leaves the client to secure Koh's car but hears three gunshots and rushes back to find the client is safe and three additional ambushers have been shot cleanly through the forehead. At a second ambush, Hanada kills more gunmen and sets Sakura, the second-ranked hitman, on fire. Sakura madly rushes towards the client but is shot dead by him. On his way home Hanada's car breaks down. Misako, a mysterious woman with a deathwish, stops and gives him a ride. At home, he has rough sex with his wife, fueled by his obsession with sniffing boiling rice. Hanada (right) demanding Misako buy him some rice. He uses the smell of boiling rice to achieve sexual arousal. Her apartment is decorated with dead butterflies which have been interpreted as symbolizing obsessive love. Yabuhara hires Hanada to kill four men, the first three being a customs officer, an ocularist and a jewellery dealer. Hanada snipes the first from behind a billboard's animatronic cigarette lighter, shoots the second from a basement up through a pipe drain when the latter leans over the sink and, ordered to finish quickly, blasts his way into the third's office and escapes on an advertising balloon. Misako then appears at his door and offers him a nearly impossible contract to kill a foreigner, which he cannot refuse having just been told the plan. During the job a butterfly lands on the barrel of his rifle causing him to miss his target and kill an innocent bystander. Misako tells him that he will now lose his rank and be killed. Hanada makes plans to leave the country but is shot by his wife, who then sets fire to their apartment and flees. His belt buckle, however, stopped the bullet and he escapes the building. He finds Misako and they go to her apartment. After alternating failed attempts by him to seduce her and them to kill each other, she succumbs to his advances when he promises to kill her. Afterwards, he finds he cannot as he has fallen in love with her. In a state of confusion he wanders the streets and passes out on the side of the road. The next day he finds his wife at Yabuhara's club. She tries to seduce him, then fakes hysteria and tells him Yabuhara paid her to kill him and that the three men he had killed had stolen from Yabuhara's diamond smuggling operation, and the foreigner was an investigator sent by the supplier. Unmoved, Hanada kills her, gets drunk and waits for Yabuhara to return. Yabuhara arrives already dead with a bullet hole through the centre of his forehead. Hanada returns to Misako's apartment where a film projector has been set up. It depicts Misako bound and tortured and directs him to a breakwater, where the following day he is to be killed. Hanada submits to the demand but kills the killers instead. The former client arrives and announces himself as the legendary Number One Killer. He says he will kill Hanada but, in thanks for the work he has done, is only giving a warning at present. Hanada holes up in Misako's apartment and Number One begins an extended siege, taunting Hanada with threatening phone calls and forbidding him to leave the apartment. Eventually, Number One moves in with the now exhausted and inebriated Hanada under the pretext that he is deciding how to kill him. They agree to a temporary truce and set times to eat, sleep and, later, to link arms everywhere they go. Number One suggests they eat out one day and then disappears during the meal. At the apartment, Hanada finds a note and another film from Number One stating he will be waiting at a gymnasium with Misako. Hanada waits at the gymnasium but Number One does not show. As a bedraggled Hanada rises to leave, a tape recorder switches on explaining, "This is the way Number One works", he exhausts you and then kills you. Hanada puts a headband across his forehead and climbs into a boxing ring. Number One appears and shoots him. The headband stops the bullet and Hanada returns fire. Number One slumps to the ground but manages to shoot him a few times before dying. Hanada leaps and staggers around the ring declaring himself the new Number One. Misako enters the gym, and Hanada instinctively shoots her dead, again declares himself Number One, then falls out of the ring. 

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Toshiro Mifune as page Katsunosuke, who courted Oharu The story opens on Oharu as an old woman in a temple flashing back through the events of her life. It begins with her love affair with a page, Katsunosuke (Toshirō Mifune), the result of which (due to their class difference) is his execution and her family's banishment. Oharu attempts suicide but fails and is sold to be the mistress of Lord Matsudaira with the hope she will bear him a son. She does, but then is sent home with minimal compensation to the dismay of her father, who has worked up quite a debt in the meantime. He sends her to be a courtesan, but there, too, she fails and is again sent home. She goes to serve the family of a woman who must hide the fact that she is bald from her husband. The woman becomes jealous of Oharu and makes her chop off her hair, but Oharu retaliates, revealing the woman's secret. She again must leave—this time she marries a fan maker who is killed shortly after during a robbery. She attempts to become a nun, but Oharu is thrown out after being caught naked with a man seeking reimbursement for an unauthorized gift (it is made clear this is rape by Oharu's claims and distraught demeanor). She is thrown out of the temple, becomes a prostitute, but fails even at that. In the end, she is recalled to the Lord's house in order to keep secret her activities and to be exiled within the compounds to keep her secrets locked away. While being scolded for the life she chose, she attempts to find her son, and in the process, ends up running away as she chooses the life of a wandering nun over the life in exile. 

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Recurring themes of Gatchaman involve conservation, environmentalism and the responsible use of technology for progress. The series centers around five young superhero ninja employed by Kōzaburō Nambu of the fictitious International Science Organization to oppose an international terrorist organization of technologically advanced villains (Galactor) who are trying to control Earth's natural resources, such as water, oil, sugar and uranium. The leader of Galactor is an androgynous, masked antagonist named Berg Katse, who is later revealed to be a shape-shifting, mutant hermaphrodite acting on the orders of an alien superior (Leader X). These mechas are often animal-based. Most of the team are in their late teens, except for Jinpei (who is about ten or eleven years old). They include Ken Washio, the team leader and tactical expert; Jō Asakura, his second-in-command marksman and weapons expert; Jun, the team's electronics and demolitions expert; Jinpei, the youngest and the reconnaissance expert, an adopted brother of Jun, and Ryū Nakanishi, the ship's pilot. The main characters wear teen clothing with T-shirts numbered to show their rank in the team or caped, birdlike battle uniforms. The Science Ninja Team is often aided by a squadron of combat pilots led by the enigmatic Red Impulse, who is later revealed as Ken's father. The Gatchaman team employs a uniquely violent and effective martial art developed by Dr. Nambu, drawing on their ability to perform feats similar to their avian namesakes, such as high-speed running and flight, high jumping and silent attacks. This fighting system, known as , is mentioned in the Japanese lyrics of the Gatchaman theme. The team members also use signature weapons and mecha-style vehicles, each with a mundane, disguised form. To change modes, each member is equipped with a wrist device that, in addition to communications and tracking, enables a change when the proper gesture and voice command ("Bird, go!") is given. Their vehicles are docked in the team's main vehicle: the God Phoenix, a supersonic plane capable of underwater travel and space flight. The God Phoenix is armed with Bird Missiles, which are fired from a rack-mounted atop the center section. After the original God Phoenix is destroyed by an octopus mecha, an improved version carries a pair of Super Bird Missiles in twin drop-down pods on the bottom center section. The ship also has an energy-beam weapon that opens the nose doors for the weapon apparatus mounted on the frame holding Joe's car; however, its solar power source is unreliable because of its sensitivity to cloud cover. The plane can also temporarily transform into a massive bird of flame (like the legendary phoenix) to escape danger or attack, although the process endangers the team because of extreme pressure in the passenger cabin. 

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The senior class of a suburban high school, Huntington Hillside, are attending a graduation party at a large house owned by a rich class member's family. Among them are Preston Meyers a nerdy outsider, who plans to proclaim his love to his four-year secret crush Amanda Beckett. Amanda, the most popular girl in school and the senior class prom queen, has recently been dumped by her popular jock boyfriend Mike Dexter. Mike is targeted by nerd classmate William Lichter, who is plotting revenge against him for years of bullying. Preston's antisocial best friend Denise Fleming has no intention of going to the party but is dragged along by Preston. Kenny Fisher is a wannabe thug who plans on losing his virginity by the end of the night. Amanda is consoled by her popular girlfriends, whom she realizes she has nothing in common with, and her own second-cousin, who tries to hit on her. She tries to figure out if she has an identity beyond "Mike Dexter's girlfriend". She discovers a letter addressed to her by Preston and, moved by its contents, makes it her mission to find him, but she doesn't know what he looks like and no one she asks gives any helpful descriptions. Meanwhile, Denise and Kenny end up getting locked inside a bathroom, where they talk about their old friendship and how they had drifted apart; their conversation leads to the restoration of their friendship and escalates into them having sex. Later, an intoxicated Mike learns from Trip McNeely—a graduate and former stud from his high school—that in college, guys like them are "a dime a dozen". Trip emphasizes how he dumped his girlfriend in the same fashion that Mike did to score with women and was unsuccessful. Terrified, Mike tries to get Amanda back, but she is happier without him and humiliates him in front of everyone at the party. Preston finds Amanda and confesses his love, but she assumes he is another pervert and rejects him in front of the entire class. She later realizes her mistake when she sees Preston's yearbook picture and tries to find him, but he has driven home. At the same time, William devises his plan to get revenge on Mike and goes into the party to drive Mike out. While inside the party, William begins drinking alcohol to fit in, and drinks enough to make him forget what he is doing there. An impromptu sing-along to Guns N' Roses' "Paradise City" causes him to become popular. William begins talking with Mike, who apologizes for bullying him. William forgives him, and the two seemingly become friends. When Mike and William are jailed as a result of a police bust, Mike takes the blame. The next morning, when William sees Mike and some of his friends at a diner, he tries to thank Mike for taking the fall. But Mike acts as though he remembers nothing that happened the previous night and ridicules William in front of his friends. Preston is at a railway station, about to leave for Boston, when Amanda arrives and asks him about the letter. Preston confesses he wrote it and is about to depart for a writing workshop with Kurt Vonnegut. The two say goodbye, but soon, Preston stops and runs back to Amanda, and they kiss. As the film ends, the characters' fates are revealed: * Seven hours later, Preston got on a train to Boston. Amanda wrote him a letter for every day that he was away. They are still together. * The day after the party, Denise and Kenny meet up in a diner; five minutes later, Denise dumped Kenny. Ten minutes later, they found a bathroom and got back together. * Mike went to college but, after drinking too much, lost his football scholarship. He ended up forty pounds overweight and working at the car wash, a job he lost when incriminating Polaroids surfaced. * William became one of the most popular students at Harvard. He formed his own computer company that has made him worth millions, and he is dating a supermodel. 

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Pierre Brossard (Caine), a French Nazi collaborator, orders seven Jews executed during World War II. Some 40 years later, he is pursued by "David Manenbaum" (Matt Craven), a hitman who is under orders to kill Brossard and leave a printed 'Statement' on his body proclaiming the assassination was vengeance for the Jews executed in 1944. Brossard kills "Manenbaum," hiding the dead body after finding the printed "Statement" and discovering that his pursuer was travelling on a Canadian passport. Brossard for years has taken refuge in sanctuaries in southern France within the Traditionalist Catholic community, appealing to long-time allies who have operated in great secrecy to shield him and provide him with funds. But now they bring increased scrutiny to themselves for continuing to do so. The murder of "Manenbaum" attracts the interest of local police and eventually the persistent Investigating Judge Annemarie Livi (Tilda Swinton). She becomes absorbed by the case, not discouraged by the lack of assistance she encounters from official sectors. Livi forms an alliance with the similarly dedicated Colonel Roux (Jeremy Northam), a senior French Gendarmerie investigator, and the pair initially suspect that "Manenbaum" was part of a Jewish assassination plot. They discover that Brossard has been the subject of several previous investigations, dating back more than 40 years, which have all failed. Livi and Roux discover hidden resources, tightening the noose around Brossard, who finds his allies increasingly reluctant to help him. Doubts arise over the theory of a Jewish hit squad, but it is clear that someone wants Brossard dead. Brossard in desperation pays a surprise visit to his estranged wife Nicole (Charlotte Rampling), a maid who is living in lower-middle-class circumstances in Marseille and is very apprehensive about seeing him again. Brossard's allies, including certain priests and a wartime colleague who has risen into a position of great power within the French government, are feeling the heat from the relentless questioning of Livi and Roux. Now desperate and unsure whom to trust, Brossard seeks new identity papers and money so he can escape France forever. On the night he is to escape, however, his handler Pochon (Ciaran Hinds) shoots him dead on orders from his former protectors within the government, who fear he will cause trouble for them if captured. Following Broussard’s death, Livi and Roux trace the conspiracy to protect him to a high-ranking government official (John Neville), and arrest him for treason. 

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Felix Ungar, a neurotic, neat freak news writer (a photographer in the television series), is thrown out by his wife, and moves in with his friend Oscar Madison, a slovenly sportswriter. Despite Oscar's problems – careless spending, excessive gambling, a poorly kept house filled with spoiled food – he seems to enjoy life. Felix, however, seems utterly incapable of enjoying anything and only finds purpose in pointing out his own and other people's mistakes and foibles. Even when he tries to do so in a gentle and constructive way, his corrections and suggestions prove extremely annoying to those around him. Oscar, his closest friend, feels compelled to throw him out after only a brief time together, though he quickly realizes that Felix has had a positive effect on him. The play and the film both spell Felix's name Ungar, while the television series spells it Unger. Felix and the Pigeon Sisters. 

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Joseph Rusling Meeker (American, 1827–1889). The Acadians in the Achafalaya, "Evangeline", 1871. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum Evangeline describes the betrothal of a fictional Acadian girl named Evangeline Bellefontaine to her beloved, Gabriel Lajeunesse, and their separation as the British deport the Acadians from Acadie in the Great Upheaval. The poem then follows Evangeline across the landscapes of America as she spends years in a search for him, at some times being near to Gabriel without realizing he was near. Finally she settles in Philadelphia and, as an old woman, works as a Sister of Mercy among the poor. While tending the dying during an epidemic she finds Gabriel among the sick, and he dies in her arms. 

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Best friends for life, physical education teacher Mike O'Hara and plumber Jimmy Flaherty are united by their love of Boston and its sports teams, especially the Boston Celtics, who are playing their last season in the old Boston Garden. When the Celtics drop Game 6 of the NBA Finals to the Utah Jazz, setting up a deciding Game 7 in Boston, Mike and Jimmy find themselves depressed and hopeless. On top of all this, Mike has moved back in with Jimmy after his wife Carol, fed up with his unhealthy obsession with the Celtics, left him and took their son Tommy with her. Jimmy and Mike stumble upon the Jazz's selfish, one-man-show shooting guard Lewis Scott at a Boston nightclub. Hoping at first to get him drunk enough so he'll be hungover for Game 7, Mike and Jimmy pose as Utah fans. This however leads to them running into their idol Larry Bird, who scolds them for being what he thinks are "fair weather" fans. However, the pair get more than they bargained for when the next morning they end up kidnapping Scott after he wakes up at Jimmy's apartment. The two decide to hold Scott until after the game, reasoning that if they are going to prison, they might as well help the Celtics win in the meantime. Scott's streetwise, arrogant ways contrast with Jimmy and Mike's bumbling blue-collar lifestyle. He derides them for being washed-up losers, and insinuates Mike is only after him because he is jealous of Scott's fame and ability. Mike, on the other hand, berates Scott for his behavior on and off the court, including starring in a campy Oscar Mayer hot dog commercial and skipping practices. Scott attempts to turn Jimmy against Mike, and, when this fails, escapes, only to be foiled by an antagonistic cabbie and a local cop, Kevin, both fellow Celtics fans. Ultimately, Mike challenges Scott to a game of one-on-one and the pair is incapacitated well before the final game is set to begin. Before he runs off, Scott presents the pair with a dilemma, they must root for him and hope the Jazz win, otherwise he will turn them both in to the police. Mike reconciles with his wife and son, knowing he might be going to prison, and Jimmy says goodbye to his grandmother. At the game, the two convince the other Celtics fans they are only pretending to root for the Jazz, and the first half ends with the Celtics leading. Mike, who knows the Jazz are losing because Scott refuses to pass the ball, gives him a pep talk from the stands, and Utah closes the gap to one point with a little over 7 seconds remaining. With one play left and the Jazz with the ball, Mike and Jimmy choose life over the Celtics, rooting for Utah and rushing the court after they win. Approached by Kevin who earlier ignored his cries for help, Lewis denies Mike and Jimmy committed the kidnapping, saving them from prison. A few months later, Mike has promised his wife he would never interfere with an NBA Finals game again. But now it's football season. He and Jimmy sneak into the hotel room of Deion Sanders at 3:00 a.m. 

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upright 

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In 1883, Sanshiro is a talented though willful youth who wishes to become a jujutsu master by becoming a student at one of the city's martial arts schools. His first attempts to find a suitable instructor fail, until he finally finds an accomplished master, Shogoro Yano from the Shudokan Judo school. Initially, Sanshiro is physically capable though he lacks any type of poise or reflection concerning his self-control and demeanor, and gets involved with brawls. However, after a grueling punishment set by his instructor to test his endurance by leaving him on a cold swamp overnight, Sanshiro begins to recognize the error in his ways and starts to appreciate that there is more to his life and to his art than simple muscle and brawn. Sanshiro becomes a leading student in his school. The city is looking to employ one of the local martial arts schools to guide the training of its local police force, and the school of Sanshiro becomes a leading candidate along with its rival, the local school of Ryōi Shintō-ryū jujutsu led by Hansuke Murai. In a scheduled competition between the two schools, Sanshiro is chosen to represent his school in a public match against Murai himself to determine which school is best to train the local police in the martial arts. The scheduled bout gets off to a slow start, but Sanshiro soon comes into his own and begins executing devastating throws which cause internal physical damage to his opponent. Although Murai tries to stand every time, energized by the memory of his daughter Sayo, he is forced to give up after the third time he is violently sent to the ground by Sanshiro. After the match, Sanshiro makes friends with his defeated opponent and becomes attracted Sayo. Sayo is greeted as a local beauty in town and another Ryōi Shintō-ryū jujutsu master, Higaki, becomes a rival to Sanshiro for her affections. When he challenges Sanshiro to a duel to the death, Sanshiro accepts and defeats him by inflicting permanent crippling damage to Higaki. After emerging victorious from his duel, Sanshiro prepares for his next assignment in Yokohama while being escorted on the local train by Sayo. He promises to return to her after he finishes his journey. 

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Henry Roth is a womanizing veterinarian at Sea Life Park on Oahu who preys on tourists. His closest friends are Ula, a marijuana-smoking Islander; his assistant Alexa, whose sexuality and gender is unclear; Willy, his pet African penguin and Jocko, a walrus. Henry’s boat breaks down, so he goes to the Hukilau Café to wait for the Coast Guard. He sees Lucy Whitmore make architectural art with her waffles. Henry assumes she is a local, which prevents him from introducing himself, but the next day he comes back and has breakfast with her. Lucy asks to see him again tomorrow morning. The next day, Lucy shows no recollection of ever meeting him. The restaurant owner Sue explains to Henry that one year ago, Lucy and her father Marlin went up to the North Shore to pick a pineapple for his birthday. On the way back, a car accident left Lucy with anterograde amnesia. She wakes up every morning thinking it is October 13. To save her the heartbreak of reliving the accident, Marlin and Doug, Lucy’s lisping steroid-addicted brother, re-enact Marlin's birthday. Despite Sue’s warning, Henry tries to get Lucy to have breakfast with him again. It ends poorly when Henry unintentionally hurts Lucy’s feelings. At her house, Marlin and Doug instruct Henry to leave Lucy alone. Henry begins concocting ways to run into Lucy through the following days. Marlin and Doug figure this out due to Lucy singing the Beach Boys "Wouldn't It Be Nice" on the days when she meets Henry. One day, as Henry is about to sit with Lucy at breakfast, she notices a police officer writing her a ticket for her expired plates. Lucy attempts to argue that they are not yet expired, and takes a newspaper to prove herself, but sees that the date on all the newspapers is not October as she thought, and Marlin and Doug are forced to admit their ruse when she confronts them. Henry comes up with an idea to make a video explaining to Lucy her accident and their relationship, and plays it every morning for her. She watched the tape and is hurt, but eventually comes to her senses and she is able to spend the day by picking up where the tape says she left off. She spends more time with Henry and goes to see some of her old friends. Lucy decides to erase Henry completely from her life after learning of Henry's decision not to take a sailing trip to Bristol Bay to study walruses, something he had been planning for the past 10 years. Henry reluctantly helps her destroy her journal entries of their relationship. A few weeks later, Henry is preparing to leave for his sailing trip. Before he goes, Marlin tells him that Lucy is now living at the institute and teaching an art class. As a parting gift, he gives Henry a Beach Boys CD. While listening to the CD, Henry becomes emotional and curses Marlin for giving him the CD and making him feel so emotional. He soon realizes that Lucy would sing "Wouldn't It Be Nice" on days that she met him and assumes that she has regained her memories of him. Henry abandons his trip and travels to the art class. Lucy tells him that she does not remember him, but that she dreams about him every night. They reconcile. Some time later, Lucy wakes up and plays the tape marked “Good Morning Lucy”. It again reminds her of her accident, but ends with her and Henry’s wedding. From the tape, Henry says to put a jacket on and come have breakfast when she is ready. Lucy then sees that she is on Henry’s boat, which finally made it to Alaska. She goes up on deck and meets Marlin, Henry and their young daughter, Nicole. 

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The film opens with Tom and Sarah in the airport, then flashes back from the moment they met up to the present. Working-class Tom Leezak and upper-class Sarah McNerney meet up when Tom accidentally hits Sarah with a football. A few months later, despite opposition from Sarah's rich family, they get married. They have kept a secret from each other: Tom doesn't tell Sarah that he accidentally killed her dog and Sarah doesn't tell Tom that she slept with Peter Prentiss, a childhood family friend, after she and Tom started dating. Flying to Europe for their honeymoon, they attempt to consummate their marriage by joining the mile high club, but fail rather publicly. They arrive at their classy hotel at the foot of the Alps to find that Peter has sent them a bottle of cognac "with love", while Tom's friend Kyle has sent them a Thunderstick A-200 sex toy. Tom tries to force the toy's American plug into the European outlet and he shuts down the entire village's electricity. The newlyweds leave the hotel after Tom has a heated argument with the hotel owner and pays a large bill to repair the power. While trying to find another hotel they crash their undersized car into a snowbank, stuck until daylight and once again unable to consummate their marriage. They make their way to Venice, staying at a pensione recommended by Tom's father. The pensione turns out to be a wreck, and they soon check out after a cockroach crawls over Tom when they try to have sex. The couple secure a nice Venetian hotel with the grudging financial help of Sarah's father. They go sightseeing, but Tom quickly gets bored and abandons Sarah so he can watch sports in a bar. Sarah runs into Peter, who is staying at their hotel on business. This prompts her to initiate a conversation with Tom in which he reveals that he accidentally killed her dog and she reveals she slept with Peter. The couple storm out of the hotel and each go their separate ways: Tom going back to the bar, where he meets American tourist Wendy, and Sarah going sightseeing, where Peter follows her. Wendy flirts and dances with Tom, who escapes through a bathroom window when he realizes she wants to have sex with him. He returns to the hotel, only to learn from the maître d' that Sarah has gone out with Peter for the evening. Tom returns to the bar, only to be accosted by Wendy again. Tom tries to think of a clever way to get out of his situation, and finds himself tricked into walking her to his hotel room, where the girl rips off her top before Tom blurts out that he's on his honeymoon, upon which the girl finally leaves. Sarah gets drunk so Peter takes her back to the hotel. When he kisses her at the entrance, she slaps him and reminds him that she's on her honeymoon. Tom sees the kiss from the balcony but not the slap. When Tom confronts her in their room, Sarah finds Wendy's bra. Peter bursts in to ask Sarah to run away with him to Seattle, leading to a fight that lands Tom and Sarah in jail - still without consummating their marriage. Peter bails them out and the couple angrily decide to go home to Los Angeles, returning to the opening moments of the film. Sarah has moved out and Tom wants to get back with her. Upon receiving advice from his father, Tom attempts to see Sarah at her family's estate, but gives up after unsuccessfully trying to ram the gate. However, Sarah opens the gate herself after seeing Tom make a romantic speech to the camera and the two rush out to proclaim their love for each other. Sarah's family finally accepts Tom and Sarah's relationship. 

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The beginning of the novel introduces the Music Master, the resident of Castalia who recruits Knecht as a young student and who is to have the most long-lasting and profound effect on Knecht throughout his life. At one point, as the Music Master nears death in his home at Monteport, Knecht obliquely refers to the Master's "sainthood". Knecht also develops another meaningful friendship with Plinio Designori, a student from a politically influential family, who is studying in Castalia as a guest, and holds vigorous debates with Designori, who views Castalia as an "ivory tower" with little to no impact on the outside world. Although educated within Castalia, Knecht's path to "Magister Ludi" is atypical for the order, as he spends a significant portion of his time after graduation outside the boundaries of the province. His first such venture, to the Bamboo Grove, results in his learning Chinese and becoming something of a disciple to Elder Brother, a recluse who had given up living within Castalia. Next, as part of an assignment to foster goodwill between the order and the Catholic Church, Knecht is sent on several "missions" to the Benedictine monastery of Mariafels, where he befriends the historian Father Jacobus – a relationship which also has profound personal impact for Knecht. As the novel progresses, Knecht begins to question his loyalty to the order, gradually coming to doubt that the intellectually gifted have a right to withdraw from life's big problems. Knecht, too, comes to see Castalia as a kind of ivory tower, an ethereal and protected community, devoted to pure intellectual pursuits but oblivious to the problems posed by life outside its borders. This conclusion precipitates a personal crisis, and, according to his personal views regarding spiritual awakening, Knecht does the unthinkable: he resigns as Magister Ludi and asks to leave the order, ostensibly to become of value and service to the larger culture. The heads of the order deny his request to leave, but Knecht departs Castalia anyway, initially taking a job as a tutor to his childhood friend Designori's energetic and strong-willed son, Tito. Only a few days later, the story ends abruptly with Knecht drowning in a mountain lake while attempting to follow Tito on a swim for which Knecht was unfit. The fictional narrator leaves off before the final sections of the book, remarking that the end of the story is beyond the scope of his biography. The concluding chapter, entitled "The Legend", is reportedly from a different biography. After this final chapter, several of Knecht's "posthumous" works are then presented. The first section contains Knecht's poetry from various periods of his life, followed by three short stories labeled "Three Lives". The stories are presented as exercises by Knecht imagining his life had he been born in another time and place. The first story tells of a pagan rainmaker named Knecht who lived "many thousands of years ago, when women ruled".Hermann Hesse. The Glass Bead Game. Penguin. Hammondsworth 1975 p 416. Eventually the shaman's powers to summon rain fail, and he offers himself as a sacrifice for the good of the tribe. The second story is based on the life of St Hilarion and tells of Josephus, an early Christian hermit who acquires a reputation for piety but is inwardly troubled by self-loathing and seeks a confessor, only to find that same penitent had been seeking him. The final story concerns the life of Dasa, a prince wrongfully usurped by his half brother as heir to a kingdom and disguised as a cowherd to save his life. While working with the herdsmen as a young boy, Dasa encounters a yogi in meditation in the forest. He wishes to experience the same tranquility as the yogi, but is unable to stay. He later leaves the herdsmen and marries a beautiful young woman, only to be cuckolded by his half brother (now the Rajah). In a cold fury, he kills his half brother and finds himself once again in the forest with the old yogi, who, through an experience of an alternate life, guides him on the spiritual path and out of the world of illusion (Maya). The three lives, together with that as Magister Ludi, oscillate between extroversion (rainmaker, Indian life – both get married) and introversion (father confessor, Magister Ludi) while developing the four basic psychic functions of analytical psychology: sensation (rainmaker), intuition (Indian life), feeling (father confessor), and thinking (Magister Ludi). 

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The novel opens with an introduction describing the human race as a primitive and deeply unhappy species as well as the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which provides info on every planet in the galaxy. Earthman Arthur Dent awakes in his home in West Country, England, to discover that the local planning council is trying to demolish his house to build a bypass and lies down in front of the bulldozer to stop it. His friend Ford Prefect—an alien researcher for Guide from a small planet in Betelgeuse who has been posing as an out-of-work actor from Guildford for 15 years— convinces the lead bureaucrat Mr. Prosser to lie down in front of the bulldozer for Arthur so that he can buy him six pints of beer at the pub. The construction crew begins demolishing the house anyway, but stop when a fleet of alien spaceships arrive on Earth undetected by human space agencies. The Vogons, a callous race of civil servants running the fleet, announce that they have come to demolish Earth to make way for a hyperspace expressway. Ford and Arthur hitch a ride from the Denassis who serve as the cooks on the fleet, and are allowed onto a spaceship traveling to Barnard's Star. They are quickly discovered by the Vogons, who torture them by forcing them to listen to their poetry and toss them out of an airlock. Meanwhile Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ford's cousin and the President of the Galaxy, steals the spaceship Heart of Gold at its unveiling with his human companion Trillian. The Heart of Gold is enabled with an "Infinite Improbability Drive" that allows it to travel instantaneously to any point in space by simultaneously passing through every point in the universe at once. After being tossed into space Arthur and Ford are rescued by the Heart of Gold as it travels with the Infinite Improbability Drive. Zaphod takes his passengers—Arthur, Ford, a depressed robot named Marvin, and Trillian—to a legendary planet known as Magrathea. Magrathea was said to have been a planet whose inhabitants specialized in custom-building planets for others, but caused themselves to become rich as the rest of the galaxy became poor and disappeared. Although Ford initially doubts that the planet is Magrathea, the planet's computers send them warning messages to leave before firing two nuclear missiles at the Heart of Gold. Arthur inadvertently saves them by activating the Infinite Improbability Drive improperly, causing the Heart of Gold to remain in Magrathea and for the missiles to transform into a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias. The whale, which unsuccessfully tries to make sense of its existence at it falls to the surface, opens a passage underground on its impact. As the ship lands Trillian's pet mice Frankie and Benjy escape. On Magrathea Zaphod, Ford, and Trillian venture down to the planet's interior while leaving Arthur and Marvin outside. Arthur is met by a man named Slartibartfast, who explains that the Magratheans have been in stasis for tens of thousands of years to wait out an economic recession. The Magratheans temporarily reawakened to reconstruct a second version of Earth commissioned by mice, who were in fact the most intelligent species on Earth. In the factory workshop Slartibartfast shows Arthur that in the distant past a race of "hyperintelligent, pan-dimensional beings" created a supercomputer named Deep Thought to determine the answer to the "Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything." Two philosophers representing a trade association, Majikthise and Vroomfondel, arrived and complained that the computer would remove uncertainty and end their jobs and demanded its deactivation. However, Deep Thought revealed that it would take 7.5 million years to complete calculations and reasoned that during that time they could argue over what the computer's answer will be. 7.5 million years later the philosophers' descendants asked Deep Thought for the answer, which it announces is the number 42. Deep Thought tells its creators that the answer makes no sense to them because they didn't know what the "Ultimate Question" had been in the first place, so he suggested designing an even greater computer to determine what the Ultimate Question was. This computer is actually the planet Earth, which was constructed by the Magratheans, and was five minutes away from finishing its task and figuring out the Ultimate Question when the Vogons destroyed it. The hyperintelligent superbeings participated in the program as mice, performing experiments on humans while pretending to be experimented on. Slartibartfast takes Arthur to see his friends, who are at a feast hosted by Trillilan's pet mice. They reject the idea of building a new Earth to start the process over and offer to buy Arthur's brain in case it contains the question, leading to a fight when he declines. Zaphod saves Arthur from having his brain removed as police from the planet Blagulon Kappa arrive to arrest Zaphod. The mice, hoping to start a lucrative career on chat shows and the lecture circuit in their home dimension, decide to pretend that the Ultimate Question was "How many roads must a man walk down?" After the police repeatedly shoot at Zaphod they suddenly die when their life-support systems short-circuit. Suspicious, Ford discovers on the surface that Marvin became bored and explained his view of the universe to the police officers' spaceship, causing it to commit suicide. The five leave Magrathea and decide to go to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. 

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The monotony of thick smog-shrouded London is broken by a sudden visit from Holmes' brother Mycroft. He has come about some missing, secret submarine plans. Seven of the ten pages—three are still missing—were found with Arthur Cadogan West's body. He was a young clerk in a government office at Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, whose body was found next to the Underground tracks near the Aldgate tube station, his head crushed. He had little money with him (although there appears to have been no robbery), theatre tickets, and curiously, no Underground ticket. The three missing pages by themselves could enable one of Britain's enemies to build a Bruce- Partington submarine. "Underground"-branded Tube map from 1908 showing the District and Metropolitan lines with Aldgate at right and Kensington at lower left It seems clear that Cadogan West fell from a train and that he stole the plans, meaning to sell them, but the mystery is truly complex. Inspector Lestrade tells Holmes that a passenger has seen fit to report hearing a thud at about the location in question, as though a body had fallen on the track. He could not see anything, however, owing to the thick fog. After an examination of the track near Aldgate, Holmes reaches an astonishing and unusual conclusion: West had been killed elsewhere, was deposited on the roof of an Underground train, and fell off when the jarring action of going across a railway point at Aldgate shook the coach. Holmes decides to visit Sir James Walter, who was in charge of the papers. He has, however, died, apparently of a broken heart from the loss of his honour when the papers were stolen, according to his brother Colonel Valentine Walter. West's fiancée is a bit more informative. There was something on his mind for the last week or so of his life. He commented to her on how easily a traitor could get hold of "the secret" and how much a foreign agent would pay for it. Then, on the night in question, as the two of them were walking to the theatre, near his office, he dashed off, never to be seen again. Sidney Johnson talking to Holmes. Holmes next goes to the office from which the plans were stolen. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk, tells Holmes that as always, he was the last man out of the office that night, and that he had put the papers in the safe. Anyone coming in afterwards to steal them would have needed three keys (for the building, the office, and the safe), but no duplicates were found on West's body, and only the late Sir James had all three keys. Johnson also mentions that one of the seven recovered pages might also be indispensable to a foreign agent. Holmes also discovers that it is possible to see what is happening inside the office from outside even when the iron shutters are closed. After leaving, Holmes finds that the clerk at the nearby Underground station remembers seeing West on the evening in question. Deeply shaken by something, he had taken a train to London Bridge. Acting on information from Mycroft, and on what he has learnt thus far, Holmes identifies a person of interest, Hugo Oberstein, a known agent who left town shortly after West's murder. Some small reconnaissance shows Holmes that Oberstein's house backs onto an above-ground Underground line, and that, owing to traffic at a nearby junction, trains often stop right under his windows. It seems clear now West's body was laid on the train roof—the evidence shows that he was not dropped from a height—just there. The only remaining questions are about who killed him and why. Holmes and Dr. Watson break into Oberstein's empty house and examine the windows, finding that the grime has been smudged, and there is a bloodstain. An Underground train stops right under the window. It would be easy to lift a dead man onto a train roof, as was apparently done. Some messages from the Daily Telegraph agony column, all seeming to allude to a business deal, are also found, posted by "Pierrot", and this gives Holmes an idea. He posts a similarly cryptic message in the Times demanding a meeting, signing it Pierrot, in the hopes that the thief—assuming it is not West—might show up at Oberstein's house. Woolwich Royal Arsenal gatehouse. (February 2007) It works. Colonel Valentine Walter shows up and is stunned to find Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, and Mycroft all waiting for him. He confesses to the theft of the plans, but swears that it was Oberstein who killed West. He had followed the Colonel to Oberstein's and then, injudiciously, intervened, and Oberstein beat his head in. Oberstein then decided, over the Colonel's objections, that he had to keep three of the papers, because they could not be copied in a short time. He then got the idea of putting the other seven in West's pockets and then putting him on a train roof outside his window, reasoning that he would be blamed for the theft when his body was found, when actually, he had only seen the theft in progress and followed the thief. Deep in debt, Colonel Walter had acted out of a need for money. He redeems himself somewhat by agreeing to write to Oberstein, whose address on the Continent he knows, inviting him to come back to England for the fourth, vital page. This ruse also works; Oberstein is imprisoned, and the missing pages of the plans are recovered from his trunk. Colonel Walter dies in prison, not long after starting his sentence. For his efforts, Holmes is given an emerald tie pin by Queen Victoria (she is not actually identified by name, but there is little doubt considering the dropped hints and given that the story is set in the year 1895, while she still reigned). 

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John Kruger (Arnold Schwarzenegger) – a top U.S. Marshal for the Witness Security Protection Program (WITSEC) – specializes in "erasing" high-profile witnesses: faking their deaths to protect them from anyone that might silence them. After erasing mob witness Johnny Casteleone (Robert Pastorelli), Kruger is given a new assignment by his boss, Chief Arthur Beller (James Coburn), to protect Lee Cullen (Vanessa L. Williams), a senior executive at Cyrez Corporation, a defense contractor. Lee warned the FBI that top-level Cyrez executives covered up the creation of a top secret electromagnetic pulse rifle and plan to sell the weapon on the black market. In an FBI sting operation, Lee accesses the Cyrez mainframe and downloads data on the EM rifle onto two discs: one for the FBI and one for her own protection. Vice President William Donohue (James Cromwell), her boss, detects Lee's intrusion and orders her into his office. After finding Lee's hidden camera and threatening her with a pistol, Donohue commits suicide in front of her. Lee delivers the disc to the FBI but, disillusioned by their broken promise to guarantee her safety, refuses Kruger's protection offer. The FBI's disc is replaced with a fake by a mole working for Deputy Secretary of Defense Daniel Harper (Andy Romano), the conspiracy's mastermind. That night, Lee's house is attacked by a mercenary team led by J. Scar (Mark Rolston) sent by Cyrez' corrupt CEO, Eugene Morehart (Gerry Becker). Kruger rescues Lee and hides her in New York City, keeping her location secret even from WITSEC. Kruger learns from his mentor, Marshal Robert DeGuerin (James Caan), that several witnesses have been murdered because a mole in WITSEC is leaking information and they must relocate their witnesses. Along with agents Calderon (Nick Chinlund), Schiff (Michael Papajohn) and newcomer Deputy Monroe (Danny Nucci), they raid a remote cabin and kill mercenaries holding DeGuerin's witness hostage, but DeGuerin discreetly kills her when the mercenary leader reveals DeGuerin as a mole. Flying back to DC, Kruger, now suspicious of DeGuerin, warns Lee to relocate. DeGuerin drugs Kruger long enough to trace the warning call to NYC and kill Monroe using Kruger's gun, framing him as the mole. Revealing he, Calderon, and Schiff are corrupt, DeGuerin explains he is the go-between for the black market buyer, and Kruger escapes from the plane to rescue Lee from DeGuerin's mercenaries. Kruger saves Cullen from Scar at Central Park Zoo, who pursues them; Kruger releases several alligators that devour Scar and his mercenaries. DeGuerin has Kruger and Lee branded as fugitives. Kruger and Lee enlist Casteleone's help, and using a mainframe backdoor in Donohue's terminal, they decrypt Lee's second disc. It reveals that a huge shipment of EM rifles is at the Baltimore docks and will be delivered to Russian Mafia boss Sergei Ivanovich Petrofsky (Olek Krupa), who plans to sell the weapons overseas to terrorists. A Cyrez operative pinpoints their whereabouts and remotely destroys the disc; DeGuerin kidnaps Lee and takes her to the docks as the shipment is being loaded onto Petrofsky's Russian freighter. Casteleone contacts his mobster cousin Tony Two-Toes (Joe Viterelli) and associates to help Kruger raid the docks. They kill Petrofsky, his henchmen, and DeGuerin's mercenaries. In a struggle atop a shipping container, DeGuerin holds Lee hostage, but Kruger frees her and destroys the lock on the container crane, dropping DeGuerin and the container to the ground and exposing the presence of the EM rifles. Kruger rescues the critically wounded DeGuerin, leaving him to be detained by Beller and the authorities and proving his and Lee's innocence. Weeks later, Kruger brings Lee to a hearing for DeGuerin, Harper, and Morehart, who are indicted for treason. With little confidence that her testimony could secure their convictions, Kruger and Lee publicly fake their deaths in a van explosion. In the back of their limousine, DeGuerin congratulates Harper on their deaths and says that they should go back into black-market business as soon as possible, but is surprised when Harper says that he assumed DeGuerin had killed them. The men are confused, then shocked as their limo stops on a train track and the driver – Casteleone – locks the doors and exits the vehicle. Kruger calls DeGuerin and tells him, "You've just been erased" as they see a train heading right for them. They can't escape before the train slams into the limo, killing all three. Kruger waves goodbye to Casteleone and walks over to Lee in a waiting car, telling her "they caught a train." 

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A father, Robert Micelli (Joe Mantegna), has become a stranger to his family and thinks only of his lawn and job. After decades of no contact, Robert's Uncle Nino (Pierrino Mascarino) flies to America for an unexpected visit, with a suitcase full of homemade Italian wine. Nino helps the family realize the true value of family. 

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In 1999, two years after the events of the first Blade film, Blade is searching in Prague for his mentor Abraham Whistler, who was thought to have died after being attacked by Deacon Frost and his vampire pack but instead was turned into a vampire. Blade discovers Whistler being held at a vampire safe house. After returning to their headquarters, Blade gives Whistler an anti-virus vampire serum to revert him back to human. Unbeknownst to Blade, a pandemic known as the "Reaper virus" has spread through the vampire community. Infected vampires are being turned into 'Reapers', a mutation of vampires, immune to most vampire weaknesses, who kill humans and turn any vampires they feed on into Reapers. Unable to contain the Reapers, Vampire Lord Eli Damaskinos sends two emissaries, Asad and his daughter Nyssa, to seek Blade's assistance. Damaskinos explains that Jared Nomak, a vampire, became infected with the Reaper virus and is purposefully feeding on other vampires, spreading the virus. Damaskinos warns Blade that after Nomak is done feeding on vampires he will begin to feed on humans. Blade reluctantly agrees to help. Asad then introduces Blade and his group to The Bloodpack, a group of vampires trained to kill Blade. In addition to Asad and Nyssa, the Bloodpack consists of Reinhardt, Chupa, Snowman, Verlaine, Lighthammer, and Priest. To keep them in line, Blade plants an explosive charge on the back of Reinhardt's head. On Blade's advice, the team starts by investigating the House of Pain, a nightclub frequented by vampires. They encounter the Reapers and discover they are much stronger and tougher than normal vampires. Nomak arrives and holds Nyssa hostage. When Blade arrives Nomak asks him why they are fighting, as they both hate vampires. However, as once vampires have been killed, the Reapers will simply move on to kill the humans, Blade attacks Nomak. Blade strikes Nomak with his anti-vampire weapons but the effects are minimal. Nomak gains the upper hand, but a burst of sunlight reflects off of Blade's sword, burning Nomak. Blade kills Priest after he becomes infected and begins to transform. Lighthammer is also infected but hides it, Whistler deserts his post, and Scud barely survives a Reaper attack. Whistler reveals that he followed a Reaper lagging behind and discovered it trapped at a large sewer entrance. The group takes the lone Reaper back to a safe house for further observation. After the Reaper dies from thirst, the dissection of its corpse reveals that most Reapers tend to burn out within 12 hours if they do not feed, as well as having an additional layer of bone, which protects the front of the heart, leaving sides of the heart unprotected. However, the Reapers are still vulnerable to sunlight. Having learned of this prime weakness, Whistler and Scud create UV projectors for the team. Blade states that their best edge is to search for the Reaper nest in the sewer at dawn, placing the entire Bloodpack at risk. While searching for the nest, Lighthammer succumbs to the infection, killing Snowman and chasing Verlaine up a manhole ladder before both die of sunlight exposure when Verlaine removes the manhole cover. Chupa turns on Whistler and attacks him, only be killed by a group of Reapers. Asad is ambushed, dragged underwater, and killed. While attempting to escape Whistler is stopped by Nomak, who reveals information about Damaskinos and gives him a royal seal ring. Using a special UV emitter bomb pack, Blade kills all of the Reapers with the exception of Nomak and rescues Reinhardt and Nyssa, but is betrayed by Damaskinos and his people, who stun Blade unconscious. Damaskinos reveals that he created the Reaper virus in order to create a new race of vampires based on Blade and that Nomak was simply a failed experiment. Whistler throws the royal seal ring at his feet and demands the full truth. Damaskinos confirms that Nomak is in fact his son. Scud reveals himself to be a familiar loyal to Damaskinos. Blade replies that he always knew of Scud's true allegiance. Blade kills Scud with the explosive charge he had earlier placed on Reinhardt. Damaskinos then orders his scientists to dissect Blade so they can learn how to replicate his abilities. Nyssa confronts Damaskinos about his lies. Damaskinos states that for the survival of the vampire race he is willing to sacrifice everything, including his own family. After escaping his captors, Whistler takes Blade to a blood pool, where he regains enough strength to kill Reinhardt and his men. Nyssa and Damaskinos attempt to escape but Nyssa locks the exit door, preventing Damaskinos from escaping, while Nomak catches up to them. Seeking revenge, Nomak tracks Damaskinos to his private heliport and kills him. Nyssa then offers herself to Nomak to be bitten; he infects Nyssa with the virus and drinks her blood. Blade then arrives and Nomak offers Blade the same alliance he did at the House of Pain. However, Blade simply tries to stab Nomak, breaking his sword. However, Nomak survives and the two fight. The fight starts equal, but Nomak's superior strength and healing abilities give him the edge. However Blade eventually stabs his broken sword-blade through the side of Nomak's chest and into his bone-protected heart, slipping it through the bone plates on the side. However, it is not quite deep enough to kill. Nomak then commits suicide by shoving the sword all the way into his wounded heart. Fulfilling Nyssa's dying wish, Blade takes her outside and embraces her as she dies while watching the sunrise before she is turned into a Reaper. 

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The current books in the series comprise two trilogies in different time frames of the same world, with significant ties to each other. The first three books are set in a time frame roughly a thousand years after the events in the later three books. The first trilogy introduces the world of Corus as a world that used to be ruled by a great civilization, that spanned the entire continent. However, a magical disaster caused its fall, ending a golden age. In the books, Corus is full of countries fighting for superiority, humans struggling to survive, and strange animals that are a product of and dependent on the life force-derived magic of the world. Additionally, there are rarely seen creatures – Soarers and Sanders – that are entities of pure life force. The fall of the civilization caused much to have been forgotten, but some few of the people of Corus still command magical powers, referred to as Talent. With that power comes the cost of having the lords of the world trying to gain influence over and control of Talent wielders. Among the denizens of Corus, these special features of the world are commonly referred to with phrases such as Talent magic, Talent wielders, and Talent creatures, among others. The second trilogy, returning to the era of the lost civilization, introduces the civilization's caretaker minority, the Alectors, who are human-like entities that exist on Corus, "linked" to their former worlds with pure life-force. While the first trilogy portrays these beings as evil – for indeed they are not natives of Corus – the later books portray the Alectors through their own point of view. Paradoxically, humans are not native to Corus either. (They are ancient genetic creations of the Alectors.) The Alectors consider regular humans (commonly referred to as steers, Landers, Indigens) inferior. Alectors are by nature, Talent wielders. Fusing their powers with technical knowledge, they are the ones that have created the infrastructure and glory of civilization that is later lost. Place names are used frequently and complexly, however, a full map of Corus is included in each book - readers are advised to check it often. 

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The Satanic Verses consists of a frame narrative, using elements of magical realism, interlaced with a series of sub-plots that are narrated as dream visions experienced by one of the protagonists. The frame narrative, like many other stories by Rushdie, involves Indian expatriates in contemporary England. The two protagonists, Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, are both actors of Indian Muslim background. Farishta is a Bollywood superstar who specialises in playing Hindu deities. (The character is partly based on Indian film stars Amitabh Bachchan and N. T. Rama Rao.) Chamcha is an emigrant who has broken with his Indian identity and works as a voiceover artist in England. At the beginning of the novel, both are trapped in a hijacked plane flying from India to Britain. The plane explodes over the English Channel, but the two are magically saved. In a miraculous transformation, Farishta takes on the personality of the archangel Gabriel and Chamcha that of a devil. Chamcha is arrested and passes through an ordeal of police abuse as a suspected illegal immigrant. Farishta's transformation can partly be read on a realistic level as the symptom of the protagonist's developing schizophrenia. Both characters struggle to piece their lives back together. Farishta seeks and finds his lost love, the English mountaineer Allie Cone, but their relationship is overshadowed by his mental illness. Chamcha, having miraculously regained his human shape, wants to take revenge on Farishta for having forsaken him after their common fall from the hijacked plane. He does so by fostering Farishta's pathological jealousy and thus destroying his relationship with Allie. In another moment of crisis, Farishta realises what Chamcha has done, but forgives him and even saves his life. Both return to India. Farishta throws Allie off a high rise in another outbreak of jealousy and then commits suicide. Chamcha, who has found not only forgiveness from Farishta but also reconciliation with his estranged father and his own Indian identity, decides to remain in India. 

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The novel opens in a dismal future America, the “Communal North American Citizen's Republic.” The United States government has become extremely intrusive and repressive, monitoring the actions, speech and even thoughts of its citizens. The protagonist, Joe Fernwright, is a pot-healer, one who can perfectly restore pottery to brand new condition. Joe finds himself constantly depressed and idle at the opening of the novel. He is unemployed and on a war veteran's social security benefit, given that ceramic pottery has been replaced by plastics, and his profession is not in great demand. He longs for purpose and meaning in life. His one entertainment is to call various friends on the worldwide telephone network and swap puzzles. These puzzles are created by translating a common English proverb or phrase into another language by using a language translation computer, and then translating it back to English the same way. The object of the game is to guess the original from the double translation. Joe finds meaning when he is summoned to "Plowman's Planet"/Sirius Five by a mysterious highly evolved alien, Glimmung, with seemingly godlike powers. Along with other similarly talented but depressed and alienated people and creatures from all over the galaxy they are employed by Glimmung, in a grand endeavor to raise an ancient sunken cathedral from the ocean floor. Glimmung is also in a struggle with the Kalends, a species gifted with precognition who are constantly writing a book that supposedly foretells the future, one which inevitably is proven right. Glimmung is determined to continue with his struggle, even when the book predicts certain failure. At the conclusion of the book, Fernwright and his companions are offered the opportunity to join a gestalt or hive mind that also encompasses Glimmung. Fernwright and an unnamed octopoid companion alone refuse the offer. Fernwright is then given various options, such as going back to earth, going with the octopoid to its planet, going to Mali's planet (a young humanoid female he had become romantically involved with and who chose to become a part of the collective conscious) or stay back on Sirius Five. The octopoid also suggests to him that he should start creating pots with the tools Glimmung has given him instead of just healing them. The story ends by saying the first pot he created was 'awful.' 

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John Nike, Vice President of Guerrilla Marketing, contracts Hack Nike, a clumsy and naïve low-level-employee, to execute an ambitious and unethical secret marketing scheme. John plans to increase interest in the upcoming Nike Mercury shoes by having Hack kill people who try to buy them, intending to make the shoes appear so desirable that customers are killing each other to acquire them. Hack signs the contract without reading it. When he finds out that it requires him to commit murder, he subcontracts the scheme to the Police, now a mercenary organisation, in an attempt to keep his job (which requires fulfilling the contract) without having to take responsibility for murder. After several children are murdered at various Nike stores on opening day, Jennifer Government takes it upon herself to track down the perpetrators, even if she cannot get the funding for her investigation. One of the murdered children bought the shoes with money given to her by Buy Mitsui, a French stockbroker flush with money after recent professional success. Feeling personally responsible for the girl's death, Buy joins forces with Jennifer. At the same time, Violet (Hack's girlfriend) creates a dangerous computer virus, intending to sell it to the highest bidder. She succeeds in selling it to ExxonMobil. Her handlers take her all over the world to exploit the virus's power, but never pay her for it. Angered, Violet turns to John Nike, who promises to help her revenge herself on ExxonMobil. In exchange, John demands that Violet kidnap Kate, Jennifer Government's daughter, intending to use her as leverage to deter Jennifer's investigation. Hack Nike is fired and founds an anti-corporate activist group in order to take revenge on John Nike. Hack and Jennifer Government succeed in rescuing Kate and arresting John. 

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David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine Phillip Ahn as Master Kan in Kung Fu Kwai Chang Caine (David Carradine) is the orphaned son of an American man, Thomas Henry Caine (Bill Fletcher), and a Chinese woman, Kwai Lin, in mid-19th-century China.Pilot episode shows a telegram (59 min. in) dated November 1873, placing the character's birth squarely in the mid-19th century, 1840–1850. After his maternal grandfather's death he is accepted for training at a Shaolin Monastery, where he grows up to become a Shaolin priest and martial arts expert. In the pilot episode, Caine's beloved mentor and elder, Master Po, is murdered by the Emperor's nephew; outraged, Caine retaliates by killing the nephew. With a price on his head, Caine flees China to the western United States, where he seeks to find his family roots and, ultimately, his half- brother, Danny Caine. Although it is his intention to avoid notice, Caine's training and sense of social responsibility repeatedly force him out into the open, to fight for justice or protect the underdog. After each such encounter he must move on, both to avoid capture and prevent harm from coming to those he has helped. Searching for his family, he meets a preacher (played by real- life father John Carradine) and his mute sidekick Sonny Jim (played by real- life brother Robert Carradine), then his grandfather (played by Dean Jagger). Flashbacks are often used to recall specific lessons from Caine's childhood training in the monastery from his teachers, the blind Master Po (Keye Luke) and Master Chen Ming Kan (Philip Ahn). In these flashbacks, Master Po calls his young student "Grasshopper," given from a playful lesson he taught to Caine as a child about being aware of the world around him, including the grasshopper that happened to be at his feet at that moment. During four episodes of the third and final season ("Barbary House", "Flight to Orion", "The Brothers Caine", and "Full Circle"), Caine finds his brother Danny (Tim McIntire) and his nephew Zeke (John Blyth Barrymore). 

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As a child in Gotham City, Bruce Wayne falls down a dry well and is attacked by a swarm of bats, developing a fear of bats. Attending the opera with his parents, Thomas and Martha, Bruce becomes frightened by performers masquerading as bats and asks to leave. Outside, mugger Joe Chill murders Bruce's parents in front of him, and the orphaned Bruce is raised by the family butler, Alfred Pennyworth. Fourteen years later, Chill is paroled after testifying against mafia boss Carmine Falcone. Bruce intends to murder Chill, but one of Falcone's assassins does so first. Bruce's childhood friend Rachel Dawes berates him for acting outside the justice system, saying that his father would be ashamed. After confronting Falcone, who tells him that real power comes from being feared, Bruce spends the next seven years traveling the world training in combat and immersing himself in the criminal underworld. In a Bhutan prison, he meets Henri Ducard, who recruits him to the League of Shadows led by Ra's al Ghul. After completing his training in ninja methods and purging his fears, Bruce learns that the League knows about Gotham and, believing the city is beyond saving, intends to destroy it. Bruce rejects the League and its edict that killing is necessary, burning down their temple during his escape. Ra's is killed by falling debris, while Bruce saves the unconscious Ducard. Returning to Gotham intent on fighting crime, Bruce takes an interest in his family's company, Wayne Enterprises, which is being taken public by the unscrupulous William Earle. Company archivist Lucius Fox, a friend of Bruce's father, allows Bruce access to prototype defense technologies, including a protective bodysuit and a heavily armored vehicle called a Tumbler. Bruce poses publicly as a shallow playboy, while setting up a base in the caves beneath Wayne Manor and taking up the vigilante identity of "Batman", inspired by his childhood fear, which he has now conquered. Intercepting a drug shipment, Batman provides Rachel with evidence against Falcone and enlists Sergeant James Gordon, one of Gotham's few honest cops, to arrest him. In prison, Falcone meets Dr. Jonathan Crane, a corrupt psychologist whom he has helped smuggle drugs into Gotham. Donning a scarecrow mask, Crane sprays Falcone with a fear- inducing hallucinogen and has him transferred to Arkham Asylum. While investigating "the Scarecrow", Batman is incapacitated by the hallucinogen, but is saved by Alfred and given an antidote developed by Fox. When Rachel, now the city's assistant district attorney, accuses Crane of corruption, he reveals he has introduced his drug into Gotham's water supply. He drugs Rachel, but Batman subdues him by spraying Crane with his own gas then interrogates him, who claims to work for Ra's al Ghul. Batman evades the police to get Rachel to safety, administering her the antidote and giving her a vial of it for Gordon and another for mass production. At Bruce's birthday party, Ducard reappears and reveals himself to be the true Ra's al Ghul. Having stolen a powerful microwave emitter from Wayne Enterprises, he plans to vaporize Gotham's water supply, rendering Crane's drug airborne and causing mass hysteria that will destroy the city. He sets Wayne Manor aflame and leaves Bruce to die, but Alfred rescues him. Ra's loads the microwave emitter onto Gotham's monorail system to release the drug at the city's central water source. Batman rescues Rachel from a drugged mob and indirectly reveals his identity to her. Confronting Ra's on the monorail, as Gordon uses the Tumbler's cannons to destroy a section of the track, Batman refuses to kill Ra's but chooses not to save him, gliding from the train as it crashes, killing Ra's. Bruce gains Rachel's respect and love, but she decides she cannot be with him now, telling him if Gotham should no longer need Batman, they can be together. Batman becomes a public hero and Bruce reveals he has purchased a controlling stake in Wayne Enterprises, firing Earle and replacing him with Fox. Sergeant Gordon is promoted to Lieutenant and shows Batman the Bat-Signal, and telling him about a criminal who leaves behind Joker playing cards. 

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In San Francisco, homicide detective Nick Curran investigates the murder of retired rock star Johnny Boz, who has been stabbed to death with an ice pick during sex with a mysterious blonde woman. Nick's only suspect is Boz's bisexual girlfriend, crime novelist Catherine Tramell, who has written a novel that mirrors the crime. It is concluded that either Catherine is the murderer or someone is attempting to frame her. Catherine is uncooperative and taunting during the investigation, smoking and exposing herself during her interrogation. She has an alibi and passes a lie detector test. Nick discovers Catherine has a history of befriending murderers, including her girlfriend Roxy, who killed her two younger brothers, on impulse, when she was sixteen years of age, and Hazel Dobkins, who killed her husband and children for no apparent reason. Nick, who accidentally shot two tourists while high on cocaine during an undercover assignment, attends counseling sessions with police psychologist Dr. Beth Garner, with whom he has an on and off affair. Nick discovers that Catherine is basing the protagonist of her latest book on him, wherein his character is murdered after falling for the wrong woman. Nick also learns that Catherine has bribed Lt. Marty Nielsen of Internal Affairs for information from Nick's psychiatric file and that Beth had previously given it to Nielsen after he threatened to recommend Nick's termination. Nick assaults Nielsen in his office, and later becomes a prime suspect when Nielsen is killed. Nick suspects Catherine, and when his behavior deteriorates, he is put on leave. Nick and Catherine begin a torrid affair with the air of a cat-and-mouse game. Nick arrives at a club and witnesses Catherine doing coke with Roxy and another man. Nick and Catherine dance and make out, and are later observed by Roxy, having violent sex in Catherine's bed. Catherine ties Nick to the headboard with a white silk scarf, just as Boz was tied by the mystery blonde, but does not kill him. Roxy, jealous of Nick, attempts to run him over with Catherine's car, but dies when the car crashes. Catherine grieves over Roxy's death and tells Nick about a previous lesbian encounter at college that went awry. She claims that the girl became obsessed with her, causing Nick to believe that Catherine may not have killed Boz. Nick identifies the girl as Beth, who acknowledges the encounter, but she claims it was Catherine who became obsessed. Additionally, Nick discovers that a college professor of Beth and Catherine's was also killed with an ice pick in an unsolved homicide, and that the events inspired one of Catherine's early novels. Nick comes across the final pages of Catherine's book in which the fictional detective finds his partner's body in an elevator. Catherine then breaks off their affair, causing Nick to become upset and suspicious. Nick later meets his partner Gus Moran, who has arranged to meet with Catherine's college roommate at an office building, hoping to reveal what really went on between Catherine and Beth. As Nick waits in the car, Gus is stabbed to death with an ice pick in the elevator. Recalling the last pages of Catherine's book, Nick runs into the building, only to find Gus' body in a manner similar to the scene described. Beth turns up as if out of nowhere and explains that she received a message to meet Gus. Nick suspects Beth has murdered Gus and, believing that she is reaching for a gun, shoots her, but discovers that Beth was only fingering an ornament on her key chain. Evidence collected in Beth's apartment implicates her as the killer of Boz, Nielsen, Moran, and her own husband, along with collections of photos and newspaper clippings of Catherine that imply an obsession with her. Nick is left confused and dejected. He returns to his apartment where Catherine meets him. She explains her reluctance to commit to him and the two have sex. As they discuss their future, an ice pick is revealed to be under the bed. 

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* Maggie Cassella hosts celebrities who talk about the worst aspects of the entertainment industry. 

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Max, a promiscuous gay man in 1930s Berlin, is at odds with his wealthy family because of his homosexuality. One evening, much to the resentment of his boyfriend Rudy, he brings home a handsome Sturmabteilung man. Unfortunately, it is the night that Hitler orders the assassination of the upper echelon of the Sturmabteilung corps, to consolidate his power. The Sturmabteilung man is discovered and killed by SS men in Max and Rudy's apartment, and the two have to flee Berlin. Max's uncle Freddie, who is also gay, but lives a more discreet life with rent boys to satisfy his desires, has organized new papers for Max to flee to France where homosexuality is legal, but Max refuses to leave his naïve boyfriend behind. As a result, Max and Rudy are found and arrested by the Gestapo and put on a train headed for Dachau concentration camp. On the train, Rudy calls out to Max as he is taken away to be beaten, so Rudy is brought back and beaten to death by Max, who denies he knows him. Max lies to the guards, telling them that he is a Jew rather than a homosexual, because he believes his chances for survival in the camp will be better if he is not assigned the pink triangle. Max later confesses to a fellow prisoner that the guards then forced him to have intercourse with the body of a dead pre-teen girl to "prove" he was not homosexual. In the camp, Max makes friends with Horst, who shows him the dignity that lies in acknowledging what one is. They fall in love and become lovers through their imagination and through their words. After Horst is shot by camp guards, Max puts on Horst's jacket with the pink triangle and commits suicide by grabbing an electric fence. 

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The little girl Isabelle (named after Franquin's daughter) gets into a lot of adventures when the evil witch Kalendula troubles Isabelle's uncle Hermès and his fiancée, the good witch Calendula (who is the descendant of the evil Kalendula). Other stories are about a magical painting, a flying village or a floating island. The stories have a poetical tone, although mixed with tons of jokes and puns, rhyming ghosts, a talking diamond and Isabelle's down-to-earth aunt – whose greatest concern when Isabelle gets into an adventure is whether she's dressed warmly enough, even when she descends into Hades. The drawings are packed with details and the poetic nature of the stories comes through in the imaginative animals and backgrounds. 

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Anthony "Tick" Belrose (Hugo Weaving), using the drag pseudonym of Mitzi Del Bra, is a Sydney-based drag queen who accepts an offer to perform his drag act at Lasseters Hotel Casino Resort managed by his estranged wife Marion in Alice Springs, a remote town in central Australia. After persuading his friends and fellow performers, Bernadette Bassenger (Terence Stamp), a recently bereaved transgender woman, and Adam Whitely (Guy Pearce), a flamboyant and obnoxious younger drag queen who goes under the drag name Felicia Jollygoodfellow, to join him, the three set out for a four-week run at the casino in a large tour bus, which Adam christens "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert". While on the long journey through remote lands bordering the Simpson Desert, they meet a variety of characters, including a group of friendly Aboriginal Australians for whom they perform, the less accepting attitudes of rural Australia in such towns as Coober Pedy, and are subjected to homophobic abuse, violence, including having their tour bus vandalized with homophobic graffiti. When the tour bus breaks down in the middle of the desert, Adam spends the whole day repainting it lavender to cover up the vandalism. The trio later meet Bob, a middle-aged mechanic from a small outback town who joins them on their journey. Before they arrive at Alice Springs, Tick reveals that Marion is actually his wife, as they never divorced, and that they are actually going there as a favour to her. Continuing their journey, Adam is almost mutilated by a homophobic gang before he is saved by Bob and Bernadette. Adam is shaken and Bernadette comforts him, allowing them to reach an understanding. Likewise, the others come to terms with the secret of Tick's marriage and resolve their differences. Together, they fulfill a long-held dream of Adam's, which, in the original plan, is to climb Kings Canyon in full drag regalia. Upon arrival at the hotel, it is revealed that Tick and Marion also have an eight-year-old son, Benjamin, whom Tick has not seen for many years. Tick is nervous about exposing his son to his drag profession and anxious about revealing his homosexuality, though he is surprised to discover that Benjamin already knows and is fully supportive of his father's sexuality and career. By the time their contract at the resort is over, Tick and Adam head back to Sydney, taking Benjamin back with them, so that Tick can get to know his son. However, Bernadette decides to remain at the resort for a while with Bob, who has decided to work at the hotel after the two of them had become close. 

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Seymour Irving Levov is born and raised in the Weequahic section of Newark, New Jersey, in 1927 as the elder son of a successful Jewish American glove manufacturer, Lou Levov, and his wife Sylvia. Called "the Swede" because of his anomalous blond hair, blue eyes and Nordic good looks, Seymour is a star athlete in high school; a two-year veteran of the Marine Corps; and the narrator Nathan Zuckerman's idol and hero. Zuckerman and Seymour's younger brother, Jerry—who grows into a curmudgeonly, irascible heart surgeon with little empathy for the Swede—are schoolmates and close friends. The Swede eventually takes over his father's glove factory and marries Dawn Dwyer, a former beauty queen from nearby Elizabeth, whom he met in college. Seymour establishes what he believes to be a perfect American life with a beloved wife and daughter, a satisfying business career, and a magnificent house in the idyllic hamlet of Old Rimrock. Yet, as the Vietnam War and racial unrest wrack the country and destroy inner-city Newark, his precocious teenage daughter Meredith ("Merry"), beset by an emotionally debilitating stutter and outraged by the war, becomes increasingly radical in her beliefs. In February 1968, Merry plants a bomb in the Old Rimrock post office, which kills a bystander; she goes into permanent hiding. Seymour finds Merry five years later, living in deplorable conditions in inner-city Newark. During this reunion, Merry reveals that she was responsible for several more bombings, killing three more people. Although Merry informs him that her actions were deliberate, Seymour decides to keep their meeting a secret, believing Merry has been manipulated by an unknown political group and a mysterious woman named Rita Cohen. At a dinner party, Seymour discovers that his wife Dawn has been having an affair with Princeton-educated architect William Orcutt III, for whom she undergoes a facelift. Seymour then realizes that his wife is planning to leave him for Orcutt. It is revealed that Seymour himself previously had a short-term affair with Merry's speech therapist, Sheila Salzman, and that she and her husband Shelly hid Merry in their home after the post office bombing. Seymour sadly concludes that everyone he knows may have a veneer of respectability, but each engages in subversive behavior and that he cannot understand the truth about anyone based upon the conduct they outwardly display. He is forced to see the truth about the chaos and discord rumbling beneath the "American pastoral", which has brought about profound personal and societal changes he no longer can ignore. Simultaneously, the dinner party underscores the fact that no one ever truly understands the hearts of other people. 

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Former Ohio State quarterback and rookie FBI agent Johnny Utah assists experienced agent Angelo Pappas in investigating a string of bank robberies by the "Ex-Presidents": a gang of robbers who wear rubber masks of Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter. Rather than robbing the vault, they only demand the cash the tellers have in their drawers, and are gone within ninety seconds. Pursuing Pappas's theory that the criminals are surfers, Utah goes undercover to infiltrate the surfing community. He fabricates a personal family tragedy to persuade orphaned surfer Tyler Endicott to teach him to surf, after she saves him from drowning during his first attempt at surfing. Through her, he meets Bodhi, the charismatic leader of a gang of surfers consisting of Roach, Grommet, and Nathanial. The group are initially wary of Utah, but accept him when Bodhi recognizes him as the former college football star. As he masters surfing, Utah finds himself increasingly drawn to the surfers' adrenaline- charged lifestyle, Bodhi's philosophies, and Tyler. Following a clue retrieved by analyzing toxins found in the hair of one of the bank robbers, Utah and Pappas lead an FBI raid on another gang of surfers, resulting in the deaths of two of them. The raid inadvertently ruins a DEA undercover operation, as those surfers were wanted for separate charges, but they are disproven to be the Ex- Presidents. Watching Bodhi's group surfing, Utah begins to suspect that they are the "Ex-Presidents", noting how close a group they are and the way one of them moons other surfers in the same manner one of the robbers does when leaving a bank. Utah and Pappas stake out a bank and the Ex-Presidents appear. While wearing a Reagan mask, the gang leader (implied to be Bodhi) leads Utah on a foot chase through the neighborhood, which ends when Utah's old knee injury flares up after jumping into an aqueduct. Despite having a clear shot, Utah does not shoot and the leader escapes. At a campfire that night, it is confirmed that Bodhi and his gang are the Ex-Presidents. Tyler discovers Utah's FBI badge and angrily terminates their relationship after briefly holding him at gunpoint. Shortly afterwards, Bodhi aggressively recruits Utah into going skydiving with the group and he accepts. After the jump, Bodhi reveals that he knows Utah is an FBI agent and has arranged for his friend Rosie, a non-surfing thug, to hold Tyler hostage. Utah is blackmailed into participating in the Ex-Presidents' last bank robbery of the summer. As a result, Grommet, along with an off-duty cop and a bank guard—who both attempt to foil the robbery—are killed. Outraged by Grommet's death, Bodhi knocks Utah out and leaves the scene. Defying their superior who arrests Utah for armed robbery, Pappas and Utah head to the airport where Bodhi, Roach, and Nathanial are about to leave for Mexico. During a shootout, Pappas and Nathanial are killed and Roach is seriously wounded. With Roach aboard, Bodhi forces Utah onto the plane at gunpoint. Once airborne and over their intended drop zone, Bodhi and Roach put on their parachutes and jump from the plane, leaving Utah to take the blame. With no other parachutes available, Utah jumps from the plane with Bodhi's gun and intercepts him. After landing safely, Utah's knee gives out again, allowing Bodhi to escape Utah's grasp. Bodhi meets with Rosie and releases Tyler. Roach dies of his wounds, and Bodhi and Rosie leave with the money, with Tyler and Johnny watching on. Nine months later, Utah tracks Bodhi to Bells Beach in Victoria, Australia, where a record storm is producing lethal waves. This is an event Bodhi had talked about experiencing, calling it the "50-Year Storm". Utah attempts to bring Bodhi into custody, but Bodhi refuses. During a brawl in the surf, Utah manages to handcuff himself to Bodhi, who begs Utah to release him so he can ride the once-in-a-lifetime wave. Knowing Bodhi will not come back alive, Utah releases him, bids him farewell, and sees him step towards the wave. While the authorities watch Bodhi surf to his death, Utah walks away, throwing his FBI badge into the ocean. 

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The story starts with live-action versions of the Muppets enjoying an ice skating party. After the skating party, the characters head home to Sesame Street performing the song "True Blue Miracle". In the main story, Oscar the Grouch plants the seeds of doubt in Big Bird's mind whether Santa Claus can actually fit down chimneys to deliver Christmas presents. Big Bird enlists the help of Kermit and Grover to interview children about how he manages it; their responses vary. Big Bird even attempts a reenactment with Snuffleupagus but it is unsuccessful. Big Bird spends the night out in the cold on the roof, waiting for Santa to appear in person. After the residents of Sesame Street realize he's gone missing, Maria confronts Oscar for upsetting Big Bird, who agrees to help search for him. Meanwhile, in a variation on the 1905 O. Henry story "The Gift of the Magi," Bert and Ernie want to give each other Christmas presents, but they have no money. Bert trades away his prized paper clip collection to buy a pink soap dish for Ernie's Rubber Duckie, but Ernie has bartered Rubber Duckie to get Bert an empty cigar box for the paper clips. Mr. Hooper, the store owner, realizes what is happening and gives them their treasured possessions back as Christmas presents. Also, Cookie Monster attempts to get in touch with Santa Claus. He ends up consuming his pencil to write a letter, his typewriter, and a telephone used to call the North Pole. At Gordon and Susan Robinson's apartment, he laments to Gordon that he was unable to contact Santa. Gordon suggests leaving cookies for Santa. In the end, Big Bird walks down from the roof to warm up, much to the relief of his friends. Big Bird realizes Santa had already come and gone when he sees the presents under the tree (due to him falling asleep on the roof and Santa's shadow looms over him while he sleeps). He regrets not learning how Santa can go through chimneys, but he comes to recognize that being together with family and friends is more important. Oscar, true to form, starts needling Big Bird about the Easter bunny, only to be rebuked by Gordon and Susan even as Big Bird begins to fret about the holidays all over again. The special concludes with Susan and Gordon returning to their apartment to find that Cookie Monster has eaten the needles off their Christmas tree. 

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The CIA is secretly developing "Crossbow", a space shuttle-mounted laser weapon precise enough to incinerate a single target from outer space, planning to use it for illegal political assassinations. However, they struggle with its power source, and have covertly hired Professor Jerry Hathaway at Pacific Technical University to develop this. Hathaway has assembled a group of brilliant physics students to do the work for him, though, outside of his graduate student Kent, purposely does not tell them the reason for their research. Hathaway is also embezzling the CIA provided funds intended for research so that he can upgrade his house. Hathaway recruits high school student Mitch Taylor to attend Pacific Tech and join the "laser weapon" development team. Mitch is roomed with Chris Knight, also a member of the team, and known to Mitch as a "legend" in the fictitious "National Physics Club". Mitch becomes dismayed that Chris is more of a goof-off than a hard-working student. Chris introduces Mitch to some of the other exceptional students, including Jordan, "Ick" Ikagami, and his nemesis, the less intelligent Kent. Despite Mitch's age and inexperience, Hathaway assigns him to lead the team due to his innovative and original ideas in the field of laser physics, hoping that he will encourage Chris to straighten up his act, and that perhaps together, the two exceptionally bright minds will solve the crucial power problem that is the only remaining obstacle to completing the weapon. Hathaway begins to be pressured by the CIA to hurry the project and is given a deadline, and he in turn assigns the team a rigorous timetable. Chris, however, continues his carefree attitude, eventually inviting Mitch to a pool party. Kent reports this to Hathaway, pulling him away from filming his television show. In front of Kent at the party, Hathaway lambastes Mitch, who in tears calls his parents and tells them he wants to go home (unaware that Kent and his friends were recording the call). The next day, Kent plays the recording over the school's public address system at lunch, humiliating Mitch. Mitch begins packing, now intent on leaving Pacific Tech, and Chris tries to reason with him as to why he should reconsider his decision by advising him on how to deal with the pressures and burdens of being highly intelligent and relating his own history and former student, Lazlo Hollyfeld's at Pacific Tech. Lazlo, as a result of "cracking", dropped off the map apparently, and Chris felt that the same could happen to him or any other super-intelligent person unless they lighten-up and enjoy life in addition to devoting themselves to their work. Mitch agrees to stay, and Chris suggests that their first priority is to exact revenge on Kent (by placing his car in his dorm room cycling the Citroën's air suspension so it appears to be sleeping). As the project is still lagging, the CIA continues to put pressure on Hathaway to produce the laser. Hathaway, now intimidated and afraid, angrily informs Chris that he is no longer of any use to him and that he is not only off the project, but that he intends to fail Chris in his final course needed for graduation. To further add insult to injury, he is giving a coveted "after-graduation" job, which was promised to Chris, to Kent instead and will take steps to ensure that Chris will never be able to find work in the field of laser physics. Now faced with his mentor having to leave in disgrace, Mitch uses the same logic and reasoning used by Chris on him to convince Chris to stay and persevere, and with help from Lazlo and their other smart friends, the two commit themselves to attain their goal with the laser and for Chris to pass Hathaway's final exam and graduate. Their hard work and dedication begin to pay off, and they are close to achieving their objective. Chris passes the exam, but in a final effort to humiliate and exact revenge on Chris and Mitch, Kent sabotages their latest apparatus, which showed the promise of succeeding, but inadvertently gives himself away as the perpetrator. Unable to actually prove it was Kent, Chris is left to brood over the injustice, and in a moment of inspiration, he comes up with a whole new approach to the design problem. In the impressive demonstration of his innovative solution that follows, Hathaway relents and congratulates Chris and assures him that he will now graduate and get his promised job. The jubilant Chris and Mitch go out to celebrate their apparent success with their friends, blissfully unaware of the real reason for the creation of the laser. Lazlo unexpectedly arrives to join their celebration apparently, but actually was looking for them to tell them his theories and suspicions regarding the possible use of their unique design. They finally realize that they have been duped. By the time they return to the lab, all of the laser equipment, along with a mirror built by Kent for a target tracking system, has been taken by Hathaway and is already in the hands of the nefarious government agency who contracted the project. The students are able to implant a radio transmitter in Kent's mouth, and Mitch uses it to speak to him through it making Kent believe Mitch is Jesus; Kent divulges the location of a nearby Air Force base where Hathaway will be demonstrating the equipment. Chris and Mitch sneak onto the base and reprogram the onboard computer to allow them to control it so Lazlo can reposition the target of the laser. Along with the rest of their team, they go to Dr. Hathaway's home and prepare something involving a small prism mirror on the outside of one of the windows and many boxes inside. They gather outside of the home to watch with one of the school's other professors and a Congressman. Kent, who was told by "Jesus" to go to the house but remain outside, arrives and goes inside. As the laser test begins, the changes cause the target to be Hathaway's house so it hits the mirror prism, heating and popping the large amount of popcorn inside. Before long, the house fills with popcorn, eventually causing it to burst at the seams, sending Kent out through the front door. Due to the laser hitting the wrong target, Hathaway investigates where the blast did go, only to find that it hit his house instead. Chris, Mitch, and the others look on at the popcorn mess in amusement as kids jump around in it like snow. Lazlo, who had submitted numerous entries for a sweepstakes contest with calculated mathematical odds, arrives in his recently-won RV and other prizes with his lady love. At dusk, Hathaway arrives to see what has become of his house. 

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The film begins with Albert Einstein (Yahoo Serious) as the son of an apple farmer in Tasmania in the early 1900s. He is uninterested in the family business, but shows an interest in science, especially in the study of physics. His interest leads his father to show him his grandfather's "laboratory", a shed in the middle of the Australian bush where he made beer. His father tells him that they have tried for years to introduce bubbles to beer, saying that the person who can will change the world forever. After a day's worth of heavy drinking, Albert postulates the theory of mass–energy equivalence (E=MC2) as a formula to split beer atoms to create bubbles in beer. After spending all night preparing, he splits a beer atom (with hammer and chisel), which causes the shed to explode. Albert runs to his parents, blackened from the explosion, carrying the formula and a glass of beer with bubbles in it. His father tells him to head to the Australian mainland and patent the formula. Once arrived, he boards a train for Sydney, where he is introduced to Marie Curie (Odile Le Clezio), a Polish- French scientist studying at the University of Sydney and Preston Preston (John Howard), the pompous manager of the Sydney Patent Office. Marie is fascinated by Albert, while Preston is annoyed by him. Albert tells Marie of his theory, which she finds fascinating. Once arrived in Sydney, Albert finds lodging in a whorehouse, and finds that the patent office will not accept theories, but only applicable ideas that apply to inventions. Albert leaves and meets Marie at the university, only to upset her professor by erasing his work and writing his own theory, causing him to be comically thrown out. She reiterates his brilliance and is seemingly more taken with him than before. Meanwhile, Preston is attempting to woo Marie with his upper-class lifestyle. During a performance at a social club, she mentions that Albert's theory has merit and is extremely interesting. Preston takes this as a challenge to his romantic aspirations and has his clerk call Einstein in to take his formula for safe keeping. Preston then turns the formula over to the Bavarian Brothers, a pair of brewmasters who intend to use the formula to get rich. Meanwhile, Albert continues inventing things (such as rock and roll and the electric violin), he also begins a romance with Marie, he takes her to the beach and demonstrates surfing for her. As they are leaving, Marie comments that she wished this moment could last forever. Suddenly, Albert has a realization and comes up with the theory of relativity on the spot. Marie is amazed that he came up with that so quickly. As they return to the hotel, the clerk tells him that Preston is creating a keg using his formula. Albert runs to the Bavarian Brothers to tell them that they cannot create this keg, they claim that Einstein is insane and have him committed. On his way to the mental institution, he meets a group of deranged scientists, including Ernest Rutherford. Once committed, his electric violin is destroyed by the nurse and he is kept isolated from the outside world in an electric cell. Marie confronts Preston about his theft of Einstein's research and his commitment to an institution. Preston counters that Einstein would have done nothing with it and he was trying to help everyone. Marie infiltrates the institution under the guise of Einstein's father, she confronts Albert in the shower room and tells him of Preston's plot. When Albert says there is not much he can do about it now, Marie storms out saying she needs a man of action. Albert rebuilds his violin into an instrument more resembling an electric guitar, he plugs it into the electrified door and plays the instrument, shorting the door out and escaping. He returns to the hotel to find a note from Marie, saying she has left Australia and returned to France. Albert finds a small steamboat and sails to France to confront Marie. She initially rejects him, but acquiesces when he tells her he's prepared to stop Preston. They use the Curie family hot air balloon and head to the Nobel ceremony in Paris that night. Many inventors and scientific luminaries are there, such as the Wright Brothers and Sigmund Freud. Charles Darwin announces Preston Preston is the winner of this year's Nobel Prize for his discovery of putting bubbles in beer. Preston begins his speech, but is interrupted by Albert, who questions if Preston even knows what happens when an atom is split. When Darwin realizes that Preston has (unknowingly) built an atomic bomb, he orders Preston to stop. Preston scoffs the warning and starts the keg, which starts shaking and building up pressure. Einstein attaches his guitar to the keg as a way to drain the atomic keg, Marie tells him not to as this would kill him. Albert sends her away and starts playing a riff on the guitar, this seems to work as the keg begins to lose power. Preston attempts to kill Einstein, but is knocked unconscious by Marie. Albert is starting to feel the effects of siphoning off the energy from the keg as he starts to radiate pure energy. This causes a massive feedback, then an explosion. As the smoke clears, Albert is standing there, blackened (like before in the shed), but otherwise unharmed. He and Marie kiss as the assembled crowd cheers for him. He returns to Tasmania with the keg and the Nobel Prize (in his name). He tells his family that he will give his formula to the world instead of keeping it for personal gain. Marie questions what will happen if governments use that formula to create atomic weapons. Albert naively replies "If you can’t trust the governments of the world, then who can you trust?" Albert steps in front of the mic and says that he has learned a new theory out of this, he then pulls up his guitar and starts playing a rock song to the delight of the assembled crowd. 

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On June 10, 1940, in a little Sicilian town of Castelcuto, 12-year-old Renato experiences three major events: Italy enters World War II; he gets a new bike; and he first sees the beautiful and sensual young woman known as Malèna, who is the most desired of the town. Her husband is in the forces in Africa, fighting the British, and she lives alone. Because of her looks and her solitary state, she is an object of lust for all the town's men and of hatred for its women. She keeps an eye on her infirm old father who lives alone, until he gets an anonymous note slandering her, upon which he rejects her. Renato becomes obsessed with Malèna, spying on her in her house and stalking her when she leaves it. To fuel his erotic fantasies, he steals some of her underwear from her clothes line. When his parents find it in his bedroom, they become upset and try to break his fixation. Malèna gets the news that her husband is killed, adding grief to her isolation. Rumours grow around her, which she unwisely helps by allowing an unmarried air force officer to visit her after dark. When she is denounced and put on trial, the officer sends testimony that he was nothing more than an occasional friend. The betrayal hurts, but Malèna says nothing to condemn him. After her acquittal, her advocate calls round and rapes her. Renato decides to be Malèna's protector, asking God and his saints to watch over her and performing little acts of vengeance against her detractors. He does not realise that his views of her are little better than those of the townspeople, and has no idea how Malèna herself feels. Meanwhile, the war reaches Sicily and the town is bombed by the Allies, killing her father. Now penniless and universally scorned, with nobody willing to give her work, she sinks into prostitution. The townsfolk are happy to see her as a whore rather than a dangerous widow. When Nazi forces occupy the town and Renato encounters his idol with two German soldiers, he faints. His mother decides it is demonic possession, taking him to a priest for exorcism, but his more practical father takes the lad to the town brothel. There he fantasises that the prostitute initiating him is Malèna. The Germans leave, and to ecstatic cheers American troops enter the town. The women storm the hotel and drag out Malèna, ripping off her clothes, beating her and cutting off her hair. To escape further persecution, she leaves the hostile town. A few days later, her husband Nino, who has survived as a prisoner of war but lost an arm, comes back looking for her. His house has been taken over by displaced people and nobody wants to tell him how to find his wife. Renato leaves him an anonymous note saying that she still loves him but has suffered misfortunes and gone to the city of Messina. A year later, Nino and Malèna are strolling through the town. Women notice she now looks more matronly and plain. Even if she's still beautiful, they realize that she is no longer a threat. So people begin speaking of her with more respect: when she goes to the market, the women who beat her say good morning and call her madam. Walking home, some fruit falls from her bag and Renato rushes to pick it up. He wishes her good luck and she gives him an enigmatic half-smile, the only time either has ever spoken to or looked openly at the other. The aged Renato reflects that he has known and loved many women and has forgotten all of them. The only one he can never forget is Malèna. 

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With his wife uninterested in fishing, Dr. Paul Martin goes on a holiday on the Cornwall coast alone. There he snags Miranda, a mermaid, and is pulled into the water. She keeps him prisoner in her underwater cavern and only lets him go after he agrees to show her London. He disguises her as an invalid patient in a wheelchair and takes her to his home for a month-long stay. Martin's wife Clare reluctantly agrees to the arrangement, but gets him to hire someone to look after their guest. He selects Nurse Carey for her eccentric nature and takes her into his confidence. To Paul's relief, Carey is delighted to be working for a mermaid as she always believed they exist. Miranda's seductive nature earns her the admiration of not only Paul, but also his chauffeur Charles, as well as Nigel, the fiancé of Clare's friend and neighbour Isobel, arousing the jealousy of the women in their lives. Nigel breaks off his engagement, but when he and Charles discover that Miranda has been flirting with both of them, they come to their senses. Clare finally figures out what sort of creature Miranda really is. Miranda overhears her telling Paul that the public must be told. She wheels herself down to the river and makes her escape. In the somewhat suggestive final scene, Miranda is shown on a rock, holding a merbaby on her lap. 

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The story is told in the first person by Jonah Scott, a British pilot for the fictional airline Air Britain who has arrived in New York City on his regular flight from London. The United States has collapsed after using up nearly all of its oil reserves and the collapse of the dollar. During the night, Jonah and the apartment superintendent and guard, John Capel, must fight off armed burglars disguised as military police looking for the food Jonah and Senior Flight Attendant Kate Monahan brought with them. Capel is wounded but Kate demonstrates her basic medical skills in cleaning and dressing the wound. Jonah offers to help Capel and a newly orphaned girlfriend, Nikki, of one of his crew travel illegally to London aboard his aircraft, in order to escape the anarchy that has befallen America. Shortly after takeoff from New York, Jonah is informed that Israel has attacked Beirut, Damascus, and Cairo with nuclear weapons in retaliation for their radioactive poisoning of Tel Aviv's water supply. Israel's strike triggers a worldwide nuclear holocaust while the plane is en route to London, the Soviet Union and China attacking America and its allies. Four Soviet diplomats on board try to hijack the plane, only to be killed. Unable to continue to Europe due to the fact that it has suffered nuclear attack, or return to also-attacked New York, the crew attempt to find a place to land their plane. They are granted landing rights at Funchal, but its airport is destroyed by the collision of an El Al flight and a desperate pilot disobeying instructions. Jonah and his crew wonder whether to crash land on an island in the Azores chain with the help of Juan, a local resident who has contacted them via amateur radio. Jonah sights a NATO airfield, Lajes Field, which is mostly intact. Jonah and the nuclear scientists who are on board deduce that the Soviets needed Lajes intact and accordingly attacked it with a short-lived neutron bomb to occupy it. Jonah lands the plane at Lajes. Although safe for now, rising levels of fallout from Europe require that they evacuate, and they decide to fly to Antarctica. They are not sure how many passengers they can bring and how many supplies they will need to bring. Jonah and the SAS soldiers on board manage to re-activate the base radar and use the teletype machines to make contact with a sheltered-in-place British naval officer in the Falkland Islands who is able to break cover and confirm with the McMurdo Antarctic base the existence of sufficient provisions, plus a nuclear reactor for warmth. He dies quickly. A Soviet Antonov freighter aircraft lands at Lajes. Initially suspected of being a Soviet landing party to secure the crucial mid-Atlantic air force base, it turns out to be carrying two female Soviet Air Force crew and a large number of civilian refugees. Next morning both aircraft, fully fueled plus carrying as much extra fuel as possible, fly to Antarctica. When the Antonov cannot make the necessary altitude to overfly the worldwide belt of hot radiation (with the weight of cargo, passengers, and fuel), fifty Soviet volunteers sacrifice themselves by jumping from the plane. Soon after the characters arrive at McMurdo, it is realised that the tilt of the Earth on its axis is being affected by the numerous nuclear explosions. There are two different endings of Down To A Sunless Sea which suggest either a radioactive death for all the survivors with a theological twist, or minus the polar advance of radiation, a chance for the almost one thousand survivors to rebuild the world. 

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